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The Ontario Health Quality Council (http://www.ohqc.ca) released its first yearly report for 2006. The summary document that is being distributed in newspapers across the province and is available online at http://www.ohqc.ca/en/docs/OHQC_Summary_2006EN.pdf documents two very important findings.

1. "Research suggests some groups, in particular the poor, immigrants, rural residents and aboriginals face greater difficulties in getting care."
2. We believe investing in e-health — using information technology to manage health, arrange, deliver and account for care, and manage the health-care system — will do the most to improve all the attributes of a high-performing health system. E-health includes creating electronic health records for all patients, health-information management systems and telehealth — the use of technology to deliver care at a distance. Better, more widespread and integrated use of technology will mean:

• Improved decisions about care
• More effective diagnosis and treatment
• Fewer medical errors
• Greater patient safety
• Increased efficiency
• Better access to services
• Better research on both care and how to run the system
• Information to support continuous quality improvement

FROM: THE TORONTO STAR NEWSPAPER -  
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146049088334&call_pageid=968256289824&col=968342212737
 
Aboriginals, Immigrants Lose Out On Health Care, Report Suggests - Apr. 26, 2006 - CANADIAN PRESS

Aboriginals, immigrants and low-income families have less access to health care in Ontario than most other residents, says a report released Wednesday by a new agency established to monitor medicare in the province.

The first report of the Ontario Health Quality Council called it a "disturbing reality" that some Ontario residents aren't getting the health care they need "because of who they are."

Council chairman Ray Hession said the agency is simply reporting the reality of the current situation in Ontario, but has not yet had time to determine the reasons behind the findings.

"The indications that led us to say that are what they are: there is disparity, there is inequity," Hession told a news conference.

"We need to assiduously find the reasons why, particularly in the area (of) the aboriginal community."

The council, an arm's-length agency established last fall by the Liberal government, also found higher-income Ontario residents suffering from chest pains get to hospitals faster than those earning lower incomes, who tend to suffer from more serious ailments.

It said women are 50 per cent more likely than men to get a prescription for a tranquillizer, but women with heart disease are less likely to receive diagnostic tests and surgery.

"I imagine there are attitudinal influences there," Hession said.

Surprisingly, the council found northern Ontario residents have better access to heart procedures, hip and knee replacements and cataract and cancer surgeries than those in the south.

But despite all that care, northerners are less healthy and live shorter lives, the report said.

"The north health network is a superb example of the use of communications and technology to deliver care, remotely," Hession said.

"Ontario probably has the best — if not the most widely used — such facilities, but it still leaves us with degrees of disparity. But it's a whole lot better now than was the case."

Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson said the Liberals would use the data in the council's report to find ways to address the shortcomings in health-care delivery.

"It's helpful for us, because it acts as an opportunity for us as a government to improve the health-care system," he said. "I don't look at it as a negative — I look at it as good information."

NDP Leader Howard Hampton said the Liberal government is to blame for many of the problems uncovered in the report.

"Low-income Ontarians and aboriginal people are paying more for health care through the new McGuinty health tax, and are getting less access to health care," he said. "It just shows some of the fundamental unfairness under the McGuinty government."

Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer called the report ``an embarrassment" to the Liberal government.

"It's not showing a lot of improvements in recent years," she said.

The health council also said Ontario and Canada should act much more quickly to establish electronic records for every patient, which it believes are fundamental to measuring the performance of the health-care system.

"That's the No. 1 issue if we're going to see real quality improvement in our health system in this province," Hession said. ``What's taking so long? Why are we so tentative about this?"

The council used a 2004 study to determine there were 32,000 people in Ontario who had what it calls "adverse events" after entering hospitals or long-term care facilities, but complained it couldn't adequately determine the exact nature of those events without electronic patient records.

The report found that only four per cent of Ontario hospitals had dedicated stroke units, which have been proven to reduce deaths and costly stays in hospital, but that information was based on data from 1997. Updated figures on the number of stroke units were not available.

Hession said instead of focusing on waiting lists, governments should address the issue of "appropriate access to appropriate care in an appropriate setting."

He said the waiting lists are a result of health-care cutbacks implemented by the previous Conservative government in the mid-1990s, when the numbers of nurses and doctors were reduced.