Sholom Glouberman's blog

With Rachlis Abandon: Book Review of Prescription for Excellence: How Innovation is Saving Canada's Health Care System.

Saving Medicare With Rachlis Abandon
A review of Michael Rachlis’ Prescription For Excellence: How Innovation is Saving Canada’s Health Care System
By Sholom Glouberman

The title of this book declares that it contains “a prescription for excellence” and its subtitle promises to show us “how innovation is saving Canada’s health care system.” The deliverer of these reassuring themes is Michael Rachlis, who is a busybody of a thinker -- a confirmed optimist who knows how to complain, and someone who cares deeply about Canadian medicare. And this book reflects all these happy sides of him. In it he has collected a multitude of stories that are clear examples of where medicare does work and where it doesn’t. He has also collected especially good examples of instances where things have been made better in a health care system that is under considerable pressure. At the end of each chapter, Rachlis includes a series of questions and recommendations that citizens can use to find out how their bit of the health care system is working, and if they take them up they can be used to make the system more responsive to their needs.