Health Reforms Not Keeping Pace with Needs — Health Council of Canada

Saskatoon, SK (May 23, 2013) – Today, the Health Council of Canada released “Progress Report 2013: Health care renewal in Canada”, highlighting the progress achieved by governments in five key areas: wait times, primary healthcare and electronic health records, pharmaceuticals management, disease prevention/health promotion, and Aboriginal health.

The report finds that, overall, efforts at reform are not keeping pace with the changing healthcare needs of Canadians. There is variability of access to services across the country.

The report specifically highlights primary care and electronic health records:

• Canadians have not received 24/7 access to primary healthcare services.
• The Health Council’s analysis of the 2012 Commonwealth Fund Survey showed that the percentage of practices providing after-hours care remained below 50% for all provinces except Ontario.
• Although progress has been made overall in implementing EHRs and EMRs, physicians are slow to implement.
• In the 2012 survey, 57% of Canadian physicians reported using an EMR, but use varied across the country; this was an increase from 2006 where only 23% of physicians were using EMR.
• As of March 2012, EHRs with the six core components (registries, diagnostic imaging, drug information systems, lab test results, clinical reports, and immunizations) were in place for 52% of the Canadian population.

Clearly, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to improve the adoption and use of EMRs and EHRs.

To obtain further information from the Health Council of Canada, click here.

Comments

[Dave Sellers]

I think I read in a report that 40% of physicians were approaching retirement. If this group is in a solo practice (or small group), the thinking is that they will not be around long enough for the ROI. They just don't want to take on the extra work. (57% (2012) + 40% = 97%)

Therefore, unless there is a shift to group practices only, that have enough resources to support an EMR, it may take a long time to reach even 80% adoption.