by medicaltechont | Mar 5, 2017 | Technology
Shortly after our story ran, the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) released a report based on The Commonwealth Fund’s 2016 international survey that highlighted this continued issue. According to the survey, Canada maintained its position as the worst of all 11 countries surveyed when it came to access to specialists. Fifty-six percent of us are waiting longer than a month to see a specialist—well over the international average of 36 percent.
Read more at http://healthydebate.ca/2017/02/topic/wait-times-specialists
by medicaltechont | Oct 8, 2016 | eHealth, Privacy
The cash-strapped provincial government wants to cash in on the patient data collected by eHealth Ontario without compromising privacy or privatizing record-keeping.
The cash-strapped provincial government wants to cash in on the patient data collected by eHealth Ontario without compromising privacy or privatizing record-keeping.
With the controversial electronic health agency’s 10-year mandate expiring at the end of 2017, Queen’s Park is looking at what’s next for eHealth.
Health Minister Eric Hoskins on Friday asked Premier Kathleen Wynne’s privatization guru, Ed Clark, for help “in valuing public and private assets with respect to Ontario’s digital health strategy.”
“I would ask you to provide the government with a value assessment of Ontario’s digital health assets and all related intellectual property and infrastructure,” Hoskins wrote in an open letter to Clark.
Read more at https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2016/10/07/liberals-want-to-know-cash-value-of-ehealth.html
by medicaltechont | Jun 6, 2016 | Uncategorized
New medical technologies are here and ready to be adopted en masse by Canadians, but the marketplace is too fragmented and access too uneven for that to happen right away, said several speakers at an Ottawa forum on seniors.
The spread of new technology like smartphones that are jam-packed with sensors is happening just as the country is being hit with a wave of baby boomers crossing into old age.
Medical experts and industry representatives alike want to see new technologies embraced that would potentially take some pressure off hospitals by allowing people to do more of their health monitoring from home.
With new tech, however, comes new potential concerns, from privacy issues to affordability to ease of access.
Read more at https://www.hilltimes.com/2016/06/03/medical-technology-marketplace-too-fragmented-forum-hears/67450
by medicaltechont | May 28, 2016 | Doctors, Technology
For under $34, many Canadians can purchase a meal, see a movie or even buy a weekly bus pass. What most Canadian’s don’t know however, is that an average doctor’s appointment costs the province just under $34.
Read more at http://mobilesyrup.com/2016/05/18/akira-and-the-rise-of-telemedicine-in-canada/
by medicaltechont | Mar 5, 2016 | private clinics, United States
Governments across Canada have been caught in a fiscal bind over the entire period of neoliberalism. On the one hand, they have pursued austerity and restraint almost without interruption since the 1990s; and, on the other, they remain under pressure to deliver some minimal social security for welfare, healthcare, pensions and so forth. Since the eruption of the financial crisis in 2008 this contradiction, a core tension of meeting social needs in capitalist societies, has gotten worse. The combination of a long depression in economic growth and permanent austerity in government budgeting has further cramped government fiscal capacities. This has led to all kinds of efforts, following the new public management organization of the state, to privatize, contract-out, marketize and so on, government functions and services.
Read more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/canadas-struggle-against-the-privatization-of-healthcare/5508667
