A Systemic Collapse of Health Care is Fast Approaching - Canada Needs Radical Reform, STAT

What You Should Know:

• The rising generations of seniors placing strains on our health care system––particularly in the arenas of chronic disease and long-term care.

• This has resulted in healthcare resource silos, preventing healthcare resources from being stretched efficiently, and this leads to inefficiency.

• And the long-term solutions to fixing healthcare problems can not simply be solved by expanding new medical schools and open more international medical graduate's license without acknowledging these issues.

• No wonder, the Canadian healthcare system is a universal coverage and access hospital that Canada boasts of. Except, of course when all else within it is encumbered by at least as many problems symbolic to everything under its veneer. But what they demonstrate is those cracks are gradually opening a bit wider and the call for reform, if not more immediate action, is only growing clearer by the day.

Canada's Healthcare System, in Perspective

While there is a time and place for educating Canadian policy makers on their health system's historical significance, this article helps unbundling Medicare to reweave the fabric of our story. Those principles were later elaborated in a federal statute (The Canada Health Act) with respect to five main aspects of medicare, namely universality, comprehensiveness; accessibility( reasonable access); portability and administrationAdministratively. These guiding principles ensure that no Canadian shall receive medical services without the necessary financial means.

While the fundamental tenets of Medicare and Medicaid have not changed, both programs are struggling to adapt - with a changing patient population, technology gains and evolving health care issues. An aging populatin, growing chronic desease prevalence and rising healthcrare cost have all added to the burden on our system. We look at some of the warning signals that suggest Canada's healthcare system is teetering on the edge.

Wait-Times - System's major problem, need to wait for medical procedures and specialists appointments. According to the Fraser Institute Measurements of Waiting Times for Health Care, last year the cumulative wait time between referral by a general practitioner and treatment medically indicated according to specialist was 22.6 weeks - up from previous record at that point ever recorded If prolonged, they can lead to longer suffering for patients and the worsening of health conditions.

Burnout: Health care employees are exhausted by the enormousness of demand causing psychological or physical ill wellness. Workforce burnout not only threatens optimal care, it also perpetuates workforce shortages.

Bureaucracy: Lastly, a significant amount of inefficiencies in the infrastructure have ironically been contributed to for years by overly complex and lobbied out bureaucracy permeating all aspects of our unaffordable health system. The mix of rules along with paperwork and piecemeal care have led to convoluted delays in patient results.

We have spiralling Costs: The trajectory of these costs is not a sustainable path for Canadians. The cost, largely funded through the public purse, will be at an all time high with these costs growing as we have are having an ageing demographic and even greater burden of chronic disease than before. Without significant cost reductions, the costs will continue to increase and make financial sustainability increasingly untenable.

Root Causes of the Crisis

In order to address these concerns, we have to understand what is driving this systemic failure:

Canada Aging Population: A third of Canadians, 23% will be seniors (65+) in the next decade. The health care services are contributing to the higher demand for chronic disease management and long term care, due to demographic changes.

Chronic Disease: The Prevalence OF Chronic Disease is higher among the most common of diseases such as diabetes, cardiac and cancer. These are long-term conditions that require on-going treatment and care, all adding to a greater burden on the healthcare system.

Application of Technological Advancements - It might help the patient faster but it would be highly expensive. The introduction of new technologies and treatments into practice only imposes an added demand on overburdened resources.

Fragmented Care Delivery: Currently, healthcare is a very fragmented system where primary care, specialist and hospital services traditionally run in silos. This leads to fragmentation of the health care service, either in an individual or provider-centric way and it is inefficient with redundancies of services that are not be delivered as well.

Funding models: Those historical budgets informs the funding model for delivering health care in Canada, so spending is almost entirely based on what has been spent before rather than need. This is derived from an antiquated healthcare model and when taken to the ends results in many potential misallocations of resources.

Still, the healthcare system in Canada is lacking behind well-lived. A half measure and short-term solution to stave off catastrophe is the implementation of extensive reform involving preferential care with reasonable wait times which will entail medical tourism with a publicly insured queue based on legitimate clinical judgement.

Areas that matter the most;

Empowering Police Jurisdiction to Build Their Nurse Practitioner Arsenal

Community Nurse Spot Pooling: Funds would be allocated to certain high demand community clinics based on medical resource shortages for them, which will have the capacity/utilization funding model applied along with relevant contracts upholding and determining scope of practice by nurse practitioners combined as a floating adjunct · Infrastructure Upkeep The nursing model including the population served, fees recruiting of practitioners and training should be determined by communities.

First, communities should use annual stipends for trainees during the training period and tuition fees to encourage people. The trainees, in that community for X number of years after completing their training. Communities should be able to afford salaries for advanced nurse practitioners serving in community provided resources higher than nursing wages, so more personnel might transfer such organizations throughout their service.

Government Financial Support — Community funding alone simply cannot mitigate the required increase in cost of training programsarchical pathways for specialized staff, ↑Ch 9 -11 The government should reassign some of the current subsidies for physician training to produce community medical resources. We consider that the outpatient department plays a more important role, which can greatly reduce the burden of hospital medical resources.

Faster Wait Times, Better Accessibility

Wait times: referral process to the specialists can be long and complicated, this also could order more diagnostic tests that may all take time hence patients have a longer wait. The centralization of booking systems and better communication between GPs and specialists are part of the solution.

Expand Telehealth Services: The use of telemedicine has shown to improve care, particularly in rural and remote areas. With telehealth visits, the specialist offering can be expanded to reduce towing down wait times for in-person consultations.

What is needed to improve Medical Infrastructure? There is a requirement to grow rapidly hospital beds as well as other medical infrastructure and healthcare.

Alleviate the resource dwindling and workforce burnout:

Recruiting and Retaining Healthcare Professionals — A solution to the shortage of healthcare workers will have to be found by attracting talent. It should pay competitively, offer team members the chance for professional growth and improve working conditions.

Healthcare Worker Support: Programs need to be established that promote healthcare worker mental and physical health, with emphasis on preventing burnout. This collaboration may well mean counseling, stress managements schemes and having sufficient break times.

Improvements in Efficiency:

Reduced Bureaucracy: Less Red Tape (this gets rehashed as criticism for almost every aspect of government, but is still promising) — As with nearly all other areas in the federal government promises to increase efficiency and cut back on multiple layers of bureaucracy should mean more time can be spent providing healthcare instead.

Integrated care models: Horizontal integration of primary, specialty and hospital based services increases standard quality outcomes for patients,revenues streams as well residual revenues in health.

Sustainable Funding Models:

Needs-Based funding: Move to a more needs-based model of fund distribution that distributes resources based on health care demand in the population as opposed to historical budgets,resemble targeting funds at where they are needed mostitored by independently.

Preventive care: Health promotion programs and early diagnosis, which are cost-effective ways to intervene with the risk groups for chronic diseases, can also reduce healthcare costs and thus reduce their long-term burdens.

How We Got Here The Journey To Rational Healthcare Policy In Canada: Case Studies

We are always told the best way to learn is by example so why not study from other successful reforms of their health systems its principle right?! Two examples are:

Box Managed Competition The Netherlands in 2006, the Dutch introduced a managed-

competition model. This model has given us the ability to be more efficient, reduce wait time and have a very satisfied patient population. Some of the most vital features that are a part and parcel of the Dutch program include:

Risk Adjustment -- Insurers receive risk-adjusted payments on the basis of health risks that insured carry, making sure higher-premium carriers have adequate resources.

Cost & Value Transparency: Insurance carriers alongside Healthcare providers are going to be held responsible for the first time, paying a portion of costs and difference in outcomes creating accountability.

Australia: Combined Funding Model.

The combination of public and private payers in Australia has its roots to fund the healthcare system, which leads to consumers having both amenities as well as universal coverage. It has in turn brought about shortened wait times and increased satisfaction among patients due to a mixed funding model for the charity. This includes features like:

Public-Private Partnerships: By forming public-private partnerships, capacity and access to care can be enhanced. Raise further public revenue - Medicare Levy Surcharge, whereby a surcharge is imposed on high income earners without private health insurance.

Technology: Its role in Healthcare Reform

Technology is a double edged sword for health care reform. Areas where technology is Transformative

EHRs:

Coordination: Access to that discrete health record can improve the coordination of care since healthcare providers have easier ability to get current information about a patient.

Reduce Errors: A benefit to this system is it can minimize mistakes by providing healthcare professionals access to critical and up-to-date information about customers — including patient history, previous prescriptions, check results/Radiologist report.

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AI and Data Analytics:

Predictive AnalyticsAI & data analytics predict disease outbreaks, at-risk populations and who will need resources. Personalized Medicine: AI could be used to create personalized treatment plans for each patient based on their data to help us deliver better results at a lower cost.

Telemedicine:

Input type: Teleamdicine opens up new worlds to those who need them. This will help reduce the burden at emergency rooms and outpatient clinics. Telemedicine platforms with remote monitoring in place for chronic disease management, can reduce the number of face-to-face appointments that are required which will be beneficial if this type of platform is operational.

Conclusion

Canada's healthcare system is at a fork in the road There is no doubt the collapse has begun but it will only exponentially increase if radical change to every system happens now. We need to address root causes of this crisis and we can copy best practices from other countries...using technology.