PAC's second conference is fast approaching! We have a great group of patients, health care professionals and board members who have registered for the event, and we're looking forward to an exciting day
For those not attending, stay connected via Twitter, #PACconf !
We'll keep you posted on progress, meaningful discussions, and we'll add some photos while we're at it.
April 27, 2012 - In the recent past, it was difficult to get a response to our message about the importance of patient participation. Although many people agreed that patients should become more engaged in health care, there were few actual examples of that in practice and not much opportunity to participate in a meaningful way. There was also very little demand for more information.
All of that has been changing. And in fact, our message has become very desirable.
We are not sure how the change happened. We hope that it is because more people recognize that patients must participate in the system to help improve their own experience and that of everyone associated with health care. It is also now widely agreed that health care systems must improve their capacity to treat chronic conditions. And this of course means that the patient must be more actively engaged - not only in their care, but in how that care is delivered.
March 7, 2012 - PAC’s visit to Kingston last week was a great success. We chose to visit Kingston General Hospital (KGH) because the hospital has dedicated itself to improving the patient experience through patient and family centred care. Members of our governance collaborative had a chance to meet each other and share ideas about how patients can become more active and effective as part of the decision making body in health care organizations.
Monday, March 5, 2012 | This article originally appeared here.
Engaging patients is the big new idea in health. Though it seems obvious that patients should be involved and actively taking part in their own care, medicare has been in trouble so long that this change is seen as a revolution.
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).