Raisa Deeber '71, SM '71, PhD '77 is the author of Treating Health Care: How the Canadian System Works and How It Could Work Better.
In the book, Deber, a professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, shines a light on the strengths and weaknesses in Canada’s healthcare policies and looks beyond Canada to best practices from around the world that countries like the United States might emulate moving forward.
Listen to an interview with Deber about the book.
With economic analysis and accessible case studies, Deber offers an unbiased look at the ways healthcare has evolved in Canada driven in part by able leadership and in part by regional and local influence. “The system was set up back in the time when health care was delivered differently, and you have some gaps now that we're trying to fill,” Deber says.
For a country like the United States, Deber has some pointed advice in reforming the healthcare system. “One of the pieces of research that I did is showing that most healthcare costs are absorbed by a very small number of people,” she says. “Most of us are pretty healthy most of the time. So the costs are this small proportion of people that account for a very high proportion of the spending. In fact this is one of the big problems you run into if you have competition in a healthcare market, because the easiest way to make money is not to take on those high-cost people. I don't understand why the United States has figured it out.”
Citing a study she conducted in Manitoba, Deber argues that healthcare providers need not ignore the neediest cases to still make a respectable profit. "Some of this is so penny-wise and pound-foolish,” says Deber.
Listen to the complete interview here.
Comments
Oscar Ruiz Villarroel
Sat, 05/26/2018 8:51pm
Canada's Health Care Model Flexibility ranks among the bests.
Canada's diverse health care models has a competitive advantage compared to the US and advanced European models such as England and Germany in terms of health results per dollars spend (r invested in health and human capital), This is a single payer model with a wide diversity on management practices at provincial levels including negotiated prices among each components under fixed regional budget approved by the Canadian Government and Political authorities at national and Provincial levels. This larger flexibility for resources allocation, goes from Provinces to small rural health clinics. This flexibility allows to compare best cost effective practices per health outcomes, including preventive care. It is well positioned to have early introduction of AI technologies and new management models. There are strong resistances among medical professionals associations for payment and allocation to densely populated services. as well as pressures from technological companies to include medical technologies without clear medical advantage. Thanks to Raisa Deeber to presents us with an update wider spectrum of challenges facing the Canadian Health Systems today.