Sholom Glouberman

January 16, 2012 - I met with Katherine Smith last week to discuss her research into the dearth of policy effects of the British research into inequalities in health. The last fifteen years have been an exceptionally fertile time for inequalities in health research, but not for the policies that would reduce such inequalities. Katherine explored the issue and argued convincingly against the orthodox Canadian view that there are distinct policy and research communities that must be brought together through knowledge brokerage.

January 4, 2012 - An article in today’s edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) compares readmission rates of 5745 heart attack patients in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 13 European countries. It concludes that patients in the U.S. are more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge than any of the others, specifically 14% of American patients versus 9% of all other patients were readmitted. The second strongest predictor of readmission after an acute heart episode was that the patient was in the United States.

January 2, 2012 - Today we received Health Care in Canada, 2011: A Focus on Seniors and Aging from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The report considers the health status of Canadians and recognizes the growing need to provide more ongoing support for people with chronic conditions. It declares that 48% of people aged 45-64 and 76% of people over 65 reported at least one chronic condition. “With increasing age the likelihood of having at least one chronic condition also increased” (19).

Access to health care was more closely correlated to the number of chronic conditions that people have than to age. And self-reported poor health status was similarly correlated with the number of chronic conditions. In 2009, 74% of seniors with only one chronic condition reported good self-perceived health, compared with only 27% of those with four or more” (19).

December 22, 2011 - Lauren Vogel, a journalist from CMAJ, called yesterday to ask me about the rules in parts of Canada that allow doctors to insist that a chaperone accompany patients during an examination. She wanted to know if doctors should have that right and what we at the Patients’ Association thought about it. It seemed to me that this was yet another indication that the relationship between patients and doctors has been changing in ways that make it more and more difficult to provide continuity of care.

TORONTO/Dec. 5, 2011 - The Patients' Association of Canada (PAC) is bringing the patient perspective to the governance level in Ontario’s healthcare boards. The association was recently awarded a $92,500 grant from The Ontario Trillium Foundation for a project titled ‘Enhancing the Patient Voice in Ontario’s Health Care Boards’ which will bring together board members and PAC volunteers for the common goal of strengthening the patient perspective in board deliberations...