Report on Aboriginal maternal and child health in Canada to be released next week

Earlier this year, the Health Council of Canada held a series of regional meetings across Canada to learn about promising programs and strategies that are improving the health of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis expectant mothers and young children.

At each session, participants were asked to list the issues facing Aboriginal communities and standing in the way of better maternal and child health. Poverty topped the list, along with its cascading effects on personal health, family relationships and communities. There were many discussions about the impact of the traumatic experience of colonization—the imposition of Western values and way of life—and residential schools.

Participants identified more than 100 programs and strategies that they believe are making improvements to the health of expectant Aboriginal mothers and young children. Many of these promising practices are integrating mainstream health care with traditional Aboriginal practices. Thanks to the wealth of information provided, next week we will be releasing a report on what we heard at these sessions and the promising practices that were identified.

The upcoming report, called Understanding and Improving Aboriginal Maternal and Child Health in Canada, is the first step of a multi-year project by the Health Council of Canada to learn more about programs and strategies that have the potential to reduce the unacceptable health disparities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. Look for the report next week, August 9, on our website at www.healthcouncilcanada.ca.

John G. Abbott, CEO, Health Council of Canada

Health Council CEO, John G. Abbott, presents at the 2011 Primary Health Care Research Conference in Brisbane, Australia

The Primary Health Care Research Conference is a major event in Australian general practice and primary health care research. This year’s conference theme was Inspirations, Collaborations, Solutions. 

Our CEO, John G. Abbott, presented at the conference on our report, How do Canadians Rate the Health Care System? from November, 2010. The report comments on the 2010 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey results, which compares the perceptions of about 20,000 citizens from 11 OECD countries on their health care systems. Mr. Abbott discussed comparisons between Canada and Australia, and highlighted some high performing countries. You can download the full conference presentation here.

A few others have been blogging about the conference, including the Australian Croakey Blog, who reflected on how primary health care can harness the “digital revolution” as well as social media’s role within primary health care.

                                                   

You can also check out the conference facebook page, or search #phcris on twitter to see what other delegates are saying about the conference.

Next year’s conference will be in July 2012 in Canberra. Sign up here to be kept in the loop for more details on the 2012 conference.

Carolyn Young, Communications Coordinator, Media Relations, Health Council of Canada

2010 National Physician Survey: Complexity of care

The 2010 National Physician Survey, an ongoing research project gathering opinions of Canadian doctors, medical residents and students, was released last week.

The survey indicates that access to care is a key issue. The greatest factor doctors identified as the cause of increasing demands for their time was complexity of patient caseload (72% said it was an issue). Physicians are being asked to do more and more as health care in Canada changes.

Caring for aging patients with many chronic conditions is becoming a large part of physicians’ workload. In addition, family doctors now play a larger role in the use of diagnostic imaging (like MRI and CT scans) and are gatekeepers to prescription drugs.

As a result of this complex environment, the number of prescriptions written and the number of diagnostic tests ordered by family doctors are increasing. Research shows that drugs and diagnostic imaging have been inappropriately used and overused in Canada.

Understanding what influences doctors’ decisions is important to ensure resources are used appropriately. Family doctors are providing care in a challenging environment, and require better access to decision-support tools, including electronic medical-record systems. It’s also important to encourage doctors to follow clinical practice guidelines to help reduce inappropriate prescribing and use of resources.

This phase of the survey included data from physicians – the data related to med students and residents will be released in September and specialty-specific breakdowns in November. Join the NPS mailing list to get this info as soon as it is released.

Carolyn Young, Communications Coordinator, Media Relations, Health Council of Canada

Key Words: Primary Health Care, Access and Wait Times