Christina Spencer's blog

[img_assist|nid=291|title=|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=640|height=481] A universal pharmacare program could chop more than $10 billion off Canada's annual health-care bill, according to a new policy study that its authors say "explodes the fallacy" that such a plan is unaffordable.

The report, released on Monday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, concludes the existing patchwork of private and public plans in Canada is inequitable, inefficient and costly.

"Canada’s pharmaceutical policies are a total failure," the study's author, Marc-André Gagnon, told reporters on Monday in Ottawa.

The report also finds that Canada is either the third or fourth most expensive country for brand-name drugs every year — ranked among the United States, Switzerland and Germany — because it deliberately inflates drug prices in order to attract pharmaceutical investment.

[img_assist|nid=289|title=|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=479|height=640]Health care professionals need sensitivity when delivering the news of a patient's imminent death, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

Rather than delegate end of life discussions to inexperienced members of medical teams, these should be delivered by experienced professionals with a network of colleagues who can help in communication and decision-making.

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Disparities in healthcare between races exist in the United States. A new study published in the journal Transfusion explores why African Americans donate blood at lower rates than whites. The findings reveal that there is a significant distrust in the healthcare system among the African American community, and African Americans who distrust hospitals are less likely to donate.

Led by Beth H. Shaz, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the New York Blood Center in New York, New York, researchers created a survey to explore reasons for low likelihood of blood donation in African Americans. Fifteen African American churches in metropolitan Atlanta participated in an 81-item self-administered survey, with 930 people responding to the survey.

[img_assist|nid=285|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=481]About 17 percent of all visits to hospital emergency departments across the United States could be treated at retail medical clinics or urgent care centers, potentially saving $4.4 billion annually in health care costs, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Conditions that could be treated safely outside hospitals include minor infections, strains, fractures and lacerations, according to findings published in the September edition of the journal Health Affairs.

"Patient traffic to hospital emergency departments has been growing, but a significant proportion of patients could be safely treated in these alternative settings," said Robin Weinick, the study's lead author and a senior social scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "Diverting these patients to alternatives such as retail clinics and urgent care centers could shorten their waiting times and save money."

[img_assist|nid=284|title=|desc=|align=center|width=640|height=481]Vaccination should be requirement for continued employment for health-care personnel, epidemiologists and infectious disease physicians say.

[img_assist|nid=282|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=479|height=640] For generations, medical students have spent two years in classrooms and laboratories, memorizing body parts and dissecting specimens, eagerly anticipating the triumphant third year when they would be immersed in working with actual people who have actual diseases.

Upending that century-old tradition, the aspiring doctors who started their training at New York University School of Medicine last week got to meet real patients on their very first day. But not to worry — they were armed only with laptop computers, not scalpels.

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Study shows people with dense social networks are more likely to acquire new health practices.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— Scientists have long thought that social networks, which features many distant connections, or "long ties," produces large-scale changes most quickly. But in a new study, Damon Centola, an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has reached a different conclusion: Individuals are more likely to acquire new health practices while living in networks with dense clusters of connections — that is, when in close contact with people they already know well.