Caregivers need more than a national day of recognition
One in four people in Canada care for a loved one, friend or neighbour.
To improve value and spur innovation, we need to change the way we pay for health care
A version of this commentary appeared in the Toronto Star, Huffington Post and Kelowna Daily Courier Health care costs the public sector about $160 billion a year in Canada, a higher per capita cost than most industrialized nations. Yet Canadians are not markedly healthier nor do we receive better care. The Commonwealth Fund has ranked […]
Navigating the health and social system a challenging part of caregiving
Governments need to start investing in care navigators to ensure equitable access to publicly funded services and supports A version of this commentary appeared in the Toronto Star, Huffington Post and Windsor Star It’s a fact: the Canadian population is aging. For the first time in history, Canadians 65 years and over outnumber those 14 […]
Three nutrition trends to stay away from — based on the best evidence
If you follow health tips in the media, you’d think the nutritional sciences are a mess: Is butter good for you or is it bad? Should I eat breakfast or skip it? Should I eat like a caveman? Or maybe should I eat more like a bird?
Why we don’t need a ‘Caregiver Recognition Day’
Organizations advocating for family caregivers are hoping our Prime Minister will soon issue a proclamation recognizing family caregivers and establish a National Caregiver Day (the First Tuesday in April).
The never-ending saga of medical user fees in Quebec
On January 26, the Quebec regulation abolishing medical user fees came into effect, bringing the province in line with federal legislation outlined in the Canada Health Act (CHA). According to the CHA, the money that flows from Ottawa to the provinces for health services, known as the Canada Health Transfer, is conditional on the provinces […]
It’s time to move health research out of the academy and into the community
Canada has a mismatch between the world class quality of research we produce on health every year and how that research is implemented into our healthcare system.
Academics need to make sure their evidence matters
An average paper in a peer-reviewed academic journal is read by no more than 10 people, according to Singapore-based academic, Asit Biswas, and Oxford-researcher, Julian Kirchherr, in their controversial commentary, “Prof, no one is reading you,” which went viral last year.
How future doctors see social factors shaping their medical practice
Medical students learn how to manage and treat disease. But once they start meeting patients in clinics and hospitals, they are also confronted with the fact that social factors have a huge impact on health and that their medical interventions might sometimes be limited. Two medical residents, Laura Stymiest and Lita Cameron, and medical student, […]
When it comes to medical tests and treatments, more is not always better
As technology and medical knowledge progress, doctors and patients have access to many more screening tools. But with the availability of more tests, also comes the risk of overtesting and overdiagnosis, worries health care researcher, Alan Cassels and doctors Wendy Levinson and Eric Bohm. They explain why more medical tests and treatments do not necessarily […]
