The Health Law Section and the Privacy Law Section of the OBA hosted an event, Custodianship of Personal Health Information in the Shared Records/Shared System Environment.
Speakers included Prof. Giuseppina D’Agostino of Osgoode Hall Law School, and Debra Grant from the Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario.
Dr. Michael Rachlis has an insightful editorial on potential solutions for rising costs in the health care sector,
Medicare is as sustainable as we want it to be…
Health policy experts conclude that improving quality is the key to sustainability. High performing organizations like the U.S. veterans health system have demonstrated it is possible to simultaneously improve quality, enhance services and control costs…
Canadians should be somewhat concerned about our health system’s costs. But the road to sustainability runs through improved quality, not user charges or privatization.
Not only a top story for the year, but one that compromises patient health, and affects voactional security for licensed nuclear medicine technologists.
via Sam Solmon of Canadian Medicine:
The radioisotope shortage. The Chalk River nuclear plant, responsible for producing about half of the world’s supply of the technetium-99 isotope used in many diagnostic imaging exams, was shut down in May for the third time in 18 months over safety concerns after leaks were discovered and it was determined radioactive water was escaping into the Ottawa River. When the plant was shut down in 2007 for similar safety reasons, the government, worried about a world shortage of the isotope, held emergency sessions in the House of Commons and, concerned about the issued an order overriding the nation’s nuclear regulatory body’s decision to shut the plant down. But by 2009, the safety problems had become so serious that the plant’s operators had no choice but to shut down the plant, halting Canada’s production of technetium-99. Canada has no backup plan and no other nuclear reactors ready to begin production of the isotope anytime soon, since the construction of two MAPLE reactors was scrapped in 2008 after years of delays and difficulties. Foreign plants supplied Canada and the U.S. as best they could, but the shortage became so severe at times that physicians were threatening to postpone patients’ tests. In the summer, Chalk River was said to be ready to come back into service in late 2009. Late 2009 came and went. The latest estimate is that the reactor will come back on-line by the end of March. We’ll believe it when we see it. In the meantime, as nuclear medicine specialists raise alarms about their technetium-99 supply problems, Canada appears to still have no long-term plan to deal with the radioisotope shortage.
Circa 2012. That’s not that far away.
See the report by Primary Care Wait Time Partnership here.
The Primary Care Wait Time Partnership is a joint project between The College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Canadian Medical Association.
Omar Ha-Redeye completed a training session at the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) on the Essentials of Governance for Public Sector Boards.
The session was conducted by Jim Mackay of the Berkley Consulting Group and Anne Corbett of Borden, Ladner, Gervais LLP.
An overview of the public sector landscape was provided, as well as the role that a board plays in an organization. The legal obligations and duties of directors were covered, as well as how to effectively conduct board meetings and play a director role.
The training also included several role-playing scenarios, and an expert panel featuring: Linda Lamereux, a lawyer sitting on the Health Services and Appeal Review Board and the Health Professions Appeal & Review Board; John Bell, a partner at Shibley Righton LLP with considerable board experience in the public sector; and Helen Hayward, who currently sits on the Board of Governors for Seneca College.
Mark Scrimshire, one of the organizers at Health Camp, thinks the customers are the ones that count in healthcare too:
Jennifer White, a lawyer specializing in Health Law at Baldwin Law, P.C., spoke at UWO law on the relevance and growth of health law as a discipline, the nature of services health lawyers can offer clients, and institutional health care clients and risk management.
Sam Solomon of Canadian Medicine and Parkhurst Exchange posted an article today mentioning reputation management and a recent post by Omar Ha-Redeye suggesting that this is a service that physicians should seriously consider.
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