Patient health management: a promising paradigm in Canadian healthcare.
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Disease management, or the focused application of resources to achieve desired health outcomes, began in Canada in 1971 with the introduction of a universal healthcare program and a single government payor. Although relatively unfocused and nonrestrictive by contemporary standards, this program was successful in terms of outcomes. However, it is expensive, and Canada's rapidly aging population is fueling a growing demand for more efficacious medical therapies. As a result, isolated services are being restricted in an effort to reduce costs. As a result of these changes and low prescription and patient compliance rates for efficacious therapies, total system costs have risen, there is a growing concern about deterioration of health outcomes, and stakeholders are dissatisfied. To optimize healthcare outcomes and reduce costs, a new paradigm--patient health management (PHM)--has emerged. With PHM, clinical and cost outcomes are continually measured and communicated to providers in an attempt to promote more efficacious care. PHM also seeks to avoid restrictive practices that are now associated with detrimental health outcomes and increased costs. PHM has proved successful when applied to acute and chronic cardiac disease treatment. It remains untested for most other diseases, but available data suggest that the comprehensive, evidence-based disease and systems management that characterizes PHM is likely to achieve the best health outcomes for the most people at the lowest possible costs. (+info)
Cost containment mechanisms in Canada.
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AIM: Describe the mechanisms currently being used by federal and provincial/territorial governments, medical associations, and private insurers to control the cost of health care in our country. METHODS: Descriptive method used. Statistics on percentage GDP spent on health, and health status of the population, were compared with other OECD countries. Questions discussed: importance of cost control, why difficult to control, and what is needed to control costs. RESULTS: System-wide mechanisms used to control health care costs include: single payer financing, universal coverage for hospital/physician services, global budgets, preventive health services, evidence-based information systems, and regionalization. Sector specific mechanisms used to control costs of physicians, hospitals, drugs, and technology. Cost control within the health care sector allows spending on other sectors (e.g., employment) that have a proven impact on one's health. Future health care cost containment policies must focus on restraining private sector costs and encouraging movement towards the determinants of health approach. CONCLUSIONS: Canada's relative success in containing costs is the result of public financing of the health insurance system. Our single payer, publicly financed health care system, allows for cost containment and universal access based on need for services rather than ability to pay. The shift of costs from the public to private sector must be curtailed. The determinants of health approach is instrumental in containing and channeling future spending on health. (+info)
Health care in Canada: incrementalism under fiscal duress.
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Driven by fiscal pressures in the 1990s, Canada's provincial Medicare systems cut inpatient care, expanded community services, and consolidated hospitals under regional authorities in nine of ten provinces. Public confidence has been badly shaken by the transition. No province has successfully integrated services across the continuum of care. Home care and prescription drug coverage vary from province to province. Efforts to reform physician payment have stalled, and capacity to measure and manage the quality of care is generally underdeveloped. Thus, for the next few years, policymakers must stabilize the acute care sector, while cautiously pursuing an agenda of piece-meal reforms. (+info)
Health care reform in Japan: the virtues of muddling through.
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Japan's universal and egalitarian health care system helps to keep its population healthy at an exceptionally low cost. Its financing and delivery systems have been adapted over the years in a gradual way that preserves balance. In particular, its mandatory fee schedule has proved to be effective in controlling spending by manipulating prices. Today, with severe fiscal problems, pressures are mounting for more radical reforms. However, these proposals attack the wrong problems and are impractical. Real problems include inequitable health insurance financing and insufficient regard for quality of hospital care. We suggest incremental reforms that would improve these situations. (+info)
An international comparison of cancer survival: metropolitan Toronto, Ontario, and Honolulu, Hawaii.
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OBJECTIVES: Comparisons of cancer survival in Canadian and US metropolitan areas have shown consistent Canadian advantages. This study tests a health insurance hypothesis by comparing cancer survival in Toronto, Ontario, and Honolulu, Hawaii. METHODS: Ontario and Hawaii registries provided a total of 9190 and 2895 cancer cases (breast and prostate, 1986-1990, followed until 1996). Socioeconomic data for each person's residence at the time of diagnosis were taken from population censuses. RESULTS: Socioeconomic status and cancer survival were directly associated in the US cohort, but not in the Canadian cohort. Compared with similar patients in Honolulu, residents of low-income areas in Toronto experienced 5-year survival advantages for breast and prostate cancer. In support of the health insurance hypothesis, between-country differences were smaller than those observed with other state samples and the Canadian advantage was larger among younger women. CONCLUSIONS: Hawaii seems to provide better cancer care than many other states, but patients in Toronto still enjoy a significant survival advantage. Although Hawaii's employer-mandated health insurance coverage seems an effective step toward providing equitable health care, even better care could be expected with a universally accessible, single-payer system. (+info)
Health care reform: lessons from Canada.
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Although Canadian health care seems to be perennially in crisis, access, quality, and satisfaction in Canada are relatively high, and spending is relatively well controlled. The Canadian model is built on a recognition of the limits of markets in distributing medically necessary care. Current issues in financing and delivering health care in Canada deserve attention. Key dilemmas include intergovernmental disputes between the federal and provincial levels of government and determining how to organize care, what to pay for (comprehensiveness), and what incentive structures to put in place for payment. Lessons for the United States include the importance of universal coverage, the advantages of a single payer, and the fact that systems can be organized on a subnational basis. (+info)
National health insurance or incremental reform: aim high, or at our feet?
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Single-payer national health insurance could cover the uninsured and upgrade coverage for most Americans without increasing costs; savings on insurance overhead and other bureaucracy would fully offset the costs of improved care. In contrast, proposed incremental reforms are projected to cover a fraction of the uninsured, at great cost. Moreover, even these projections are suspect; reforms of the past quarter century have not stemmed the erosion of coverage. Despite incrementalists' claims of pragmatism, they have proven unable to shepherd meaningful reform through the political system. While national health insurance is often dismissed as ultra left by the policy community, it is dead center in public opinion. Polls have consistently shown that at least 40%, and perhaps 60%, of Americans favor such reform. (+info)
Affordable health insurance for all is possible by means of a pragmatic approach.
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America can attain affordable health insurance coverage for all by using a pragmatic approach. Such an effort must accommodate the realities of the American health care system and resist the temptation to propose radical restructuring. The congressional strategy for universal health care described here was developed by the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine. It builds on the strengths of the current pluralistic system by combining the benefits of public health plans such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program with a more competitive and affordable private insurance market. The health care system has reached a crisis point. Allowing the status quo to continue courts certain disaster. (+info)