Access and quality of health care in Canada: Insights from 1998 to the present

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 253-258
Author(s):  
Claire Samuelson-Kiraly ◽  
Terrence Montague ◽  
Joanna Nemis-White ◽  
Nicole MacPherson ◽  
Lesli Martin ◽  
...  

This article reviews perceptions of Canada’s public and health professionals regarding access and quality of healthcare. Principal data sources were 13 sequential Health Care in Canada (HCIC) surveys, from 1998 to 2018. Over time, the data series reveals that an increasing majority of the public report receiving quality care, rising from a national average of 53% in 2002 to 61% in 2018. Regionally, the variation in quality care has been relatively narrow, ranging from 52% in the Atlantic and Prairie provinces to 65% in Ontario in 2018. Professionals’ ratings for delivery of quality care in 2018 were slightly higher than the public, averaging 65% and ranging from 58% among nurses to 72% and 74% among physicians and administrators. Despite the favourable ratings received for quality of healthcare, a persistent and growing issue in all regions of the country is concern around timely access to care. In 1998, 4% of the public rated prolonged wait times as a concern; in 2018, 43% rated it as their greatest concern. Regionally, the variation in 2018 ranged from 34% in the Atlantic provinces to 49% in Alberta. This concern about timely access involves all major components of healthcare delivery and is anticipated to worsen. Proposals to improve timely access have been suggested, with interdisciplinary, team-based care being the most strongly supported proposal. The Canadian Medicare system is currently recognized as a valued component of our national identity. However, sub-optimal access continues to undermine quality of care. In the absence of improved access, healthcare quality and outcomes will also remain sub-optimal.

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 431-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon G. Liu ◽  
Samantha A. Vortherms ◽  
Xuezhi Hong

China experienced both economic and epistemological transitions within the past few decades, greatly increasing demand for accessible and affordable health care. These shifts put significant pressure on the existing outdated, highly centralized bureaucratic system. Adjusting to growing demands, the government has pursued a new round of health reforms since the late 2000s; the main goals are to reform health care financing, essential drug policies, and public hospitals. Health care financing reform led to universal basic medical insurance, whereas the public hospital reform required more complex measures ranging from changes in regulatory, operational, and service delivery settings to personnel management. This article reviews these major policy changes and the literature-based evidence of the effects of reforms on cost, access, and quality of care. It then highlights the outlook for future reforms. We argue that a better understanding of the unintended consequences of reform policies and of how practitioners’ and patients’ interests can be better aligned is essential for reforms to succeed.


Author(s):  
Karan Chawla ◽  
Angesom Kibreab ◽  
Victor & Scott ◽  
Edward L. Lee ◽  
Farshad Aduli ◽  
...  

Objective: It is unknown whether patients’ ratings of the quality of healthcare services they receive truly correlate with the quality of care from their providers. Understanding this association can potentiate improvement in healthcare delivery. We evaluated the association between patients’ ratings of the quality of healthcare services received and uptake of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Subject and Methods: We used two iterations of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) of adults in the United States. HINTS 2007 (4,007 respondents; weighted population=75,397,128) evaluated whether respondents were up-to-date with CRC screening while HINTS 4 cycle 3 (1,562 respondents; weighted population=76,628,000) evaluated whether participants had ever received CRC screening in the past. All included respondents from both surveys were at least 50 years of age, had no history of CRC, and had rated the quality of healthcare services that they had received at their healthcare provider’s office in the previous 12 months. Results: HINTS 2007 data showed that respondents who rated their healthcare as good, or fair/poor were significantly less likely to be up to date with CRC screening compared to those who rated their healthcare as excellent. We found comparable results from analysis of HINTS 4 cycle 3 data with poorer uptake of CRC screening as the healthcare quality ratings of respondents’ reduced. Conclusion: Our study suggested that patients who reported receiving lower quality of healthcare services were less likely to have undergone and be compliant with CRC screening recommendations. It is important to pay close attention to patient feedback surveys in order to improve healthcare delivery.


2013 ◽  
Vol 03 (12) ◽  
pp. 01-14
Author(s):  
Keelson, Solomon A. ◽  
Ann Dodor

The study was purposed to consider how encouraging use of locum nursing could aid in managing nurse shortage in the country and consequently improve the service quality of healthcare in Ghana. To be able to address the research problem and achieve the objectives, thirty public hospitals and thirty private hospitals were selected from the three major cities in Ghana to provide data for the study. Also, 250 locum nurses were sampled for information. Nursing Supervisors or Hospital Administrators from the selected hospitals were use as informant for the study. The paper adopted a survey approach, where incidental sampling technique was used to select the hospitals, and the snowball together with incidental sampling methods were used for selecting locum nurses for the study. Mean and standard deviation were the data analysis method used. The findings confirmed that locum practice in Ghana is relatively low. Similarly, the paper also suggested that locum contribute to addressing the issue of nurse shortage in Ghana. At the same time locum nursing was found to contribute to quality healthcare delivery in the country. Appropriate policy directions were recommended.


2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (suppl 6) ◽  
pp. 2713-2719
Author(s):  
Daniela Cristina Moreira Marculino de Figueiredo ◽  
Helena Eri Shimizu ◽  
Walter Massa Ramalho ◽  
Alexandre Medeiros de Figueiredo ◽  
Kerle Dayana Tavares de Lucena

ABSTRACT Objective: To describe the evaluation of patients that participated in the National Program for Improving the Access and Quality in Primary Health Care (Programa Nacional de Melhoria do Acesso e da Qualidade na Atenção Básica) for the comprehensive healthcare, the bond and the coordination of care in the country's macro-regions. Method: A descriptive, transversal study, from interviews with 65,391 patients of Primary Health Care, in 3,944 municipalities regarding the use of health services. Results: The professionals seek to solve the patients' problems in their unit (73.1%) but focused mainly on the scope of the appointment (65.6%) and offering care away from the population's reality (69.4%). Difficulties in the rescue of clinical history were referred (50.3%) and in the care performed in other health services (29.2%). Conclusion: The comprehensive health care, the bond and the coordination of care remain challenges to the Primary Health Care in the country, requiring reflections on the implementation of national policies, especially considering the regional diversities in Brazil.


Mediscope ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mst Jannatul Ferdousi

Bangladesh government has initiated a project with the title of "Revitalization of Community Health Care Initiatives in Bangladesh (RCHCIB)" to further develop the Community Clinics (CCs) and strengthen their operations in delivering primary health care. Measuring patient satisfaction with CC service users can play an important role in developing quality care. The objectives of this study were to measure patient satisfaction with CC through facility (CC) based survey and to measure overall patient satisfaction with CC through household based survey. The overall mean patient satisfaction score was 3.7 ± 1.0 and 2.4 ± 1.1 for facility based survey and household based survey, respectively. Policy and strategy should be done to increase quality of care resulting high level of patient satisfaction to service provided at CCs. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/mediscope.v1i1.21633 Mediscope Vol. 1, No. 1: 2014, Pages 23-28


Author(s):  
Luciana Cardoso ◽  
Fernando Marins ◽  
César Quintas ◽  
Filipe Portela ◽  
Manuel Santos ◽  
...  

With the advancement of technology, patient information has been being computerized in order to facilitate the work of healthcare professionals and improve the quality of healthcare delivery. However, there are many heterogeneous information systems that need to communicate, sharing information and making it available when and where it is needed. To respond to this requirement the Agency for Integration, Diffusion, and Archiving of medical information (AIDA) was created, a multi-agent and service-based platform that ensures interoperability among healthcare information systems. In order to improve the performance of the platform, beyond the SWOT analysis performed, a system to prevent failures that may occur in the platform database and also in machines where the agents are executed was created. The system has been implemented in the Centro Hospitalar do Porto (one of the major Portuguese hospitals), and it is now possible to define critical workload periods of AIDA, improving high availability and load balancing. This is explored in this chapter.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Gesser-Edelsburg ◽  
Nour Abed Elhadi Shahbari ◽  
Ricky Cohen ◽  
Adva Mir Halavi ◽  
Rana Hijazi ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND In the new media age, the public searches for information both online and offline. Many studies have examined how the public reads and understands this information but very few investigate how people assess the quality of journalistic articles as opposed to information generated by health professionals. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine how public health care workers (HCWs) and the general public seek, read, and understand health information and to investigate the criteria by which they assess the quality of journalistic articles. METHODS A Web-based nonprobability sampling questionnaire survey was distributed to Israeli HCWs and members of the public via 3 social media outlets: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. A total of 979 respondents participated in the online survey via the Qualtrics XM platform. RESULTS The findings indicate that HCWs find academic articles more reliable than do members of the general public (44.4% and 28.4%, respectively, P<.001). Within each group, we found disparities between the places where people search for information and the sources they consider reliable. HCWs consider academic articles to be the most reliable, yet these are not their main information sources. In addition, HCWs often use social networks to search for information (18.2%, P<.001), despite considering them very unreliable (only 2.2% found them reliable, P<.001). The same paradoxes were found among the general public, where 37.5% (P<.001) seek information via social networks yet only 8.4% (P<.001) find them reliable. Out of 6 quality criteria, 4 were important both to HCWs and to the general public. CONCLUSIONS In the new media age where information is accessible to all, the quality of articles about health is of critical importance. It is important that the criteria examined in this research become the norm in health writing for all stakeholders who write about health, whether they are professional journalists or citizen journalists writing in the new media.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Wahida Zulkifli

BACKGROUND The public opinion and experience on the health care services are crucial to provide valuable insight towards improving and strengthening the health care systems. OBJECTIVE This study aims to explore the public perspective regarding the quality of health care services rendered by the health care facilities in Malaysia. METHODS The snowballing strategy was used to reach the target through an online opinion poll with three open-ended questions on the strengths of the healthcare facilities, their expectation and suggestion for improvement along with the sociodemographic characteristic. Data were analysed using a thematic approach. RESULTS A total of 800 participants (68% of females and 32% of males) participated. Their responses were grouped into 5 main themes namely: (1) system; (2) input; (3) service delivery; (4) outputs; (5) outcomes. Public feel that they are respected and treated with care by the healthcare providers. However, most of the participants highlighted the issue of long waiting time when they visited healthcare facilities. In relation to this issue, they suggested the facilities to have more staff especially doctors to improve current service. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, enhancing service delivery by reducing the waiting time, should be the main focus as viewed by the public. The quality of services provided would certainly be improved by having sufficient resources including healthcare workers.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
Rahmatullah Rahmatullah ◽  
Budi Mulyono

The existence of the board of education in the province of Jakarta is a form of responsibility and community participation in education. Board of education was positioned as a companion to the government, whose presence is expected to be a strategic partner between the public and the government in the management and organization of education. Duties and functions of the provincial board of education is to provide recommendations to the governor about the the access and quality of education services. As the forum community participation, DKI Jakarta provincial education boards also helped encourage accountability and transparency of the use of public funds with the organizers that the school education department and school committees in open access usage of school funds to the public


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document