by medicaltechont | Mar 15, 2014 | emr, private clinics
TORONTO — Ontario’s Liberal government is putting community hospitals and medicare at risk with a plan to turn a wide range of services over to private clinics that will extra bill patients, a health care advocacy group warned Monday. The Ontario Health Coalition said taking such things as diagnostic services, physiotherapy and operations like cataract surgeries out of hospitals and having them provided by private clinics is a direct threat to publicly-funded medicare.
“This is a giant step towards American-style private health care, there’s no question,” said coalition executive director Natalie Mehra. “Virtually all of the private clinics that exist in Canada bill the public health system and they charge extra user fees too. That’s illegal under the Canada Health Act, but that’s routine in the private clinics.” Patients going to private clinics in Ontario can be billed up to $1,300 in extra fees for cataract surgery, while people looking for endoscopies or colonoscopies face fees of $80 to $200 above what’s billed to OHIP, said Mehra.
“These are services patients have paid for already through our taxes, and the private clinics are bringing in two-tier health care,” she said. “The Ministry of Health has turned a blind eye to these charges, and is now expanding the private clinic sector.” Health Minister Deb Matthews was unavailable for comment Monday, but her office said the government was committed to “move more routine, low-risk procedures into the community” through non-profit clinics.
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/ontario-patient-group-seeks-to-stop-shift-of-some-services-to-private-sector-1.1722323#ixzz2w2mluJp0
by medicaltechont | Mar 15, 2014 | eHealth, EHR, Software
A Fredericton doctor says the province’s new electronic medical records system has created an uneven playing field.
Dr. Doug Varty was one of about 60 doctors who adopted electronic records before the new system was introduced.
He says he is out tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of work because the Department of Health and the New Brunswick Medical Society went with a program that no one was using.
In addition, Varty won’t be able to link to the provincial system, he said.
“That’s a very important part of any EMR is being able to download your data — you know, your lab reports, your X-ray reports, consultant reports and all those sorts of things, automatically, and in a timely fashion. And we’re being denied that,” Varty said.
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by medicaltechont | Oct 8, 2013 | e-Health, eHealth
After more than a decade of hard work and collaboration, digital health is making treatment safer, more efficient, and, ultimately, better for Canadians.
Consider the following:
Use of electronic medical records (EMR) in community-based practices in Canada has yielded efficiency and patient care benefits valued at $1.3-billion since 2006.
Drug information systems reduce prescription errors and result in fewer adverse drug events with annual estimated benefits of $475-million.
Tele-health saved patients over 47 million kilometres in travel and $70-million in personal travel costs in 2010 alone.
Through investment with our jurisdictional partners, Canada Health Infoway has already established the foundational requirements for securely capturing, storing, sharing, accessing and managing health information. And while every province and territory is at a different stage of development, they are all working on these foundational elements according to their local priorities and needs.
Canadian consumers are comfortable with digital tools and are global leaders in the adoption and use of information technologies such as social media, online shopping and digital banking. Coupled with a growing desire to manage our wellness and to take on more active roles in the management of our chronic diseases, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in our digital health journey.
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by medicaltechont | Apr 27, 2012 | eHealth, Ontario
A Toronto conference on health informatics hears experts tout the use of information technology to improve patient outcomes
Enterprises aren’t the only organizations that suffer from silos of data. So does the medical community, a Toronto health informatics conference has been told.
Dr. Bruce Friedman, professor emeritus of pathology at the University of Michigan medical school, said that for too long pathologists– who look at patient tissues through microscopes, and radiologists – who look at x-rays – have operated as separate, sometimes undigitized disciplines.
Their reports go separately to clinicians, who have to make a diagnosis.
But, Friedman said, it’s time, to bring the disciplines together through information technology to create a single “super diagnosis” to make it easier for doctors.
His speech on Thursday at the opening of the two-day Advances in Health Informatics Conference was one of a number of presentations by doctors and researchers on how IT can improve patient outcomes.
The conference led off with former Canadian astronaut Dr. Dave Williams, now chief executive officer and assistant professor of surgery at Ontario’s Southlake Regional Health Centre, saying health informatics “is truly the disruptive, revolutionary change that will change the way we deliver health care.”
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by medicaltechont | Mar 25, 2010 | Healthcare, Ontario MD, Technology
By Anne-Marie Tobin (CP) – Mar 24, 2010
TORONTO — As Donna Hammill-Chalk undergoes treatment for breast cancer, she can log onto the website at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, type in a username and secure password, and gain access to her medical records.
In Prince Edward Island, her mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in December, doesn’t have electronic records – but if they existed, it would be easier for her to share updates on her condition and treatment with her four grown children living in different parts of the world.
“Cancer – you lose all control and you can get some control back by having access to your information,” Hammill-Chalk said in an interview Wednesday from her home in Markham, Ont., where she is recovering from a mastectomy.
“I think in this day and age, patients need to take ownership and accountability for managing their own care. And you can’t do that if you don’t have the information.”
She tells her story in a report card on cancer, released by the Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada. The report also calls for more funding for cancer drugs, bans everywhere on smoking in cars with kids and more genetic testing so treatments can be targeted to those who will benefit.
Dr. Pierre Major, chair of the report card committee, said the electronic records system at Sunnybrook, known at MyChart, is the only one he’s aware of that’s available to cancer patients in Canada.
Physicians there have told him they’re happy with it, he said.
“It’s great because patients look up in their chart what the results are, and it saves phone calls. The patients are happy because they can access their results or even change their appointments.”
It’s something that Marlene Nicholson, who lives in Bedford, N.S., can only wish for as she helps her mother navigate the health-care system. She’s Hammill-Chalk’s sister, and has made the three-hour drive to Lower Freetown, P.E.I., on numerous occasions in recent months to support their 69-year-old mom, Margaret Hammill, during her medical appointments.
With one sister in Ontario, another in Bahrain, and a brother in California, she has to relay a lot of information, Nicholson said.
“When the siblings are at a distance, yes, it would be great to be able to just say ‘OK, go here’ or ‘Mom has a password’ or whatever it takes, or if we could send a file … everybody can have access to it.”
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