Canadian healthcare system

The headline for the July 29th New York Times article read “Scientists Seek to Rein in Diagnoses of Cancer.” The accompanying article discusses the fact that many diagnoses of cancer are of conditions that, though pre-malignant or not life-threatening, are labelled as cancer and frighten patients into seeking “what may be unneeded and potentially harmful treatments.”

WANTED: Patient & Family Advisors for a Hand Hygiene Working Group at Toronto's St. Joseph's Health Centre to help shape current and future hand hygiene practices, improvements and initiatives.

St. Joseph's is looking for people to participate in regular evaluation of the program’s activities and outcomes, make recommendations, and offer input – all from a patient/family perspective. To apply, you must be 18 and older and have had experience with its services over the last two years, either as a patient, family member or caregiver.

Mounting concern that health professional/patient interactions are often less than therapeutic has led to many initiatives aimed at finding ways to put the care back into the health care system. In Canada, one such initiative is the creation of the Patient Experience department of Alberta Health Services. Find the full article here.

Patients, families key to changing the system. When Glenn Fahner was paralyzed after a fall during a fishing trip in August 2009, he was sent to Michigan for care because there were no appropriate hospital beds for him in Ontario.

The heartbreaking stories of two women who believe their fathers were let down by the health-care system in their final days were just the kind of experiences Sholom Glouberman came to Sudbury to hear. Glouberman said he had "quite a day" Monday in Sudbury, meeting with people and trying to understand how Health Sciences North is working to engage people in a different kind of health care.

Find the full article here.

Are patients over treated and over-prescribed in modern health care? Patients' Association President Sholom Glouberman featured in the second of two programs looking at the modern realities of medicine. Watch now!