State is stifling innovation at hospitals healthcare executive

The head of a controversial executive health clinic made a spirited call Tuesday for more entrepreneurship in Canadian health care charging that central government planning has undercut a storied surgical hospital and saddled Ontario with an inferior telephone healthadvice service

Restrictions imposed on Torontos forprofit Shouldice Hospital once an international model of medical business have prevented the clinic from offering the most advanced form of hernia operation and eroded its market share charged Shaun Francis CEO of Medcan

Isnt it sad how the system has effectively forced a jewel to languish the CEO commented to an Economic Club of Canada luncheon crowd What killed the Shouldice The government killed the Shouldice Time and again the government has shown the central planning approach is futile

A spokesman for the hospital however voiced surprise at Mr Franciss comments saying that Shouldice is seeing as many patients as ever about 7500 a year with 1000 on the current wait list and has even talked to potential partners about expanding to China and India

In Ontario the province pays for patients to undergo treatment at the private hospital

The Medcan CEO should have gotten his facts straight first said Daryl Urquhart a Shouldice spokesman

The hospital is certainly not falling on hard times he said It is as much in demand as its ever been
Mr Franciss company founded by his physicianfather was one of the first in Canada to offer enhanced primarycare services such as longer doctor appointments and more preventive tests for a fee

In his speech he said Shouldice earned an international reputation by performing one procedure hernia repair more efficiently and safely than it was done in general hospitals

Then in the 1990s a California surgeon came up with a more advanced repair technique that allowed patients to go home the same day Because the Ontario government allowed Shouldice to make a profit only from patients overnight stays it was unable to adopt the outpatient technique Mr Francis said

Not so said Mr Urquhart In fact Shouldices reputation is founded on the care it provides patients away from the infectious disease and other risks of a large hospital not a particular technique he said Still the province does bar it from building new facilities he said the current Liberal government being generally opposed to forprofit clinics

Time and again the government has shown the central planning approach is futile
As more evidence of what he called the negative effects of government management Mr Francis said Ontario also rejected a telephone medicaladvice service whose computer software he was marketing that would have actually helped keep people away from emergency departments The province opted instead for a cheaper program now called Telehealth Ontario that offered callers information but no advice on where they should seek care Mr Francis said

Shortterm savings have been more than offset by the additional thousands of patients who needlessly end up in emergency he claimed

A prominent defender of public health care dismissed however the notion that government has excessive control over the system Most physicians in Canada are private operators and face much less interference than their counterparts in the US do from both private insurers and government said Dr Danielle Martin a spokeswoman for the group Canadian Doctors for Medicare

The success of clinics such as Shouldice and nonprofit cataractsurgery centres in Toronto and Winnipeg comes not from the commercial motive but from offering one procedure with factorylike efficiency in a relatively riskfree environment said the Toronto family physician

As for Medcan and other executive clinics Dr Martin said they were horribly inefficient themselves offering long appointments for minor complaints and conducting unnecessary and pricey tests She said some of her own patients have memberships in the private clinics as a company perk and show up with reams of printouts from questionable screening such as heart stress tests done on healthy 40 year olds

The private clinics then expect her to deal with the results


Date : 09 May, 2012
Reference : http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/08/state-is-stifling-innovation-at-hospitals-health-care-execut

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