Higher patient satisfaction scores are linked to increased health care costs, and higher mortality1. Pause. Take a second, and re-read that last sentence. The follow up question is obvious – why would administrators push patient satisfaction if it results in worse outcomes? This post seeks to delve into the harms of targeting patient satisfaction, why it appears to be done, and the importance of speaking to our administrators in order to advocate on …
Lessons from NASA – How to Become an Expert Clinician
In medicine, we often draw some of our lessons on safety from the aviation industry (i.e.: preoperative checklists), here we will explore a host of pearls that medicine can learn from the brilliant minds at NASA to help augment one’s practice as an expert clinician. Commander Chris Hadfield has previously discussed a riveting tale regarding his first ever space walk1. During his mission, he was tasked with helping to assemble the Canada 2 …
“Allergies” – Sometimes they’re real, but usually they’re not
How often have you seen a patient with more documented allergies than medications they’re taking? Commonly; patient’s will often suggest that they are allergic to medications like sulfa, penicillin, codeine and morphine in the Emergency Department. We often think for a moment, and prescribe something different – but I’d like to argue that this line of thinking is far more harmful than we think, and is doing our patients and the healthcare system …
Infographic on the Proposed Canadian Tax Changes
Two weeks ago CanadiEM published a primer on the proposed tax changes and their potential impact on physicians who are incorporated. To make the content even more easy to digest and share, our infographic team has put together the above image to describe the changes in a more visual medium.
Proposed Canadian Tax Changes: A Primer
There has been a lot of recent buzz and media attention around some proposed tax changes from the Canadian government. We’ve noticed that there is a lot of misconception and confusion regarding some of these changes, so we hope to provide some clarity into some of the issues as they affect small business and in particular, incorporated physicians. For the purposes of this article, the CanadiEM Editorial team has joined forces with Mrs. …
Shared decision making
Resource utilization in medicine is becoming an increasingly critical issue (as also noted by the number of discussions we’ve had on it here at CanadiEM), and this acknowledgement is important. However, once we’ve accepted the harms (to the patient and system) with excessive over-utilization, we can begin to look at ways to address and optimize physician behaviour. There are many ways to approach the subject, and one that is often cited is Shared Decision Making …