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Doctors and health-care groups are calling for Canada’s premiers to move quickly on existing solutions to address the country’s growing health-care challenges that are plaguing not only patients but doctors.
The Canadian Medical Association is one of those groups. It’s calling for better patient data sharing and less administrative work for doctors.
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Dr. Bolu Ogunyemi is president of the Canadian Medical Association and a dermatologist from St. John’s, N.L. He said changes over recent years have exacerbated pressures in health care.
“(From) population and demographic changes, to the complexity of patients and even the way we practise medicine, there have been a lot of changes that have caused real stress and strain on health-care systems. Not to mention the effect climate change has on health and disrupting health systems. So those would be all changes over the past number of years that have caused increased stress in this area,” said Ogunyemi.
To address many of those challenges, he said the first step would be to reduce the amount of paperwork doctors face each day and spread the workload among other health-care professionals.
“We need to reduce administrative burden so our time can be spent doing what we are paid to do, what we train to do, and what we love to do, and that’s treating patients and (spending) less time doing paperwork and filling out forms.
“There have been some positive change in that way in terms of simplifying the disability tax credit and increasing the number of health providers that can do it. But we need to make sure that we reduce the administrative burden,” he said.
“Similarly, it’s not every health issue that needs a medical doctor to treat. So when we can work with nurses and pharmacists, we make sure that patients are getting the care from the health professional that’s best suited to treating them,” said Ogunyemi.
With the buildup of these challenges in recent years and the lack of family doctors nationwide, Ogunyemi said the impact is plain.
“I see patients of all ages, and because they don’t have access to care they’re having more and more advanced diseases. In my case, lots of advanced skin cancers that could have been managed earlier if they had access to care. So it’s something that truly sticks with many doctors in whichever way they practise,” he said.
Ogunyemi said solutions have already been implemented in many places to reduce those administrative burdens and provide more time for patients, but they need to be expanded.
“We want to make sure that health technologies are maximized. So the Connected Care Act, Bill S-5, supports the interoperability of health systems, so that whether you’re getting treatment in a community clinic, a walk-in clinic or a hospital, that information flows with you.
“Patients get that information, and doctors do as well. That can help reduce unnecessary tests, unnecessary costs and improve co-ordination of care. It also means patients don’t have to keep retelling their story time and again. So it really brings efficiency to the system and empowers patients as well. So we’re really hoping that the government supports the passing of this bill,” he said.
“There’s lots of solutions. One would be leveraging technology and AI. If we have connected health-care systems through the connected care legislation, then doctors aren’t having to check three or four systems to find information about their patients.
“If we continue to adopt artificial intelligence, it can serve as a scribe, allowing doctors to focus on their patients instead of spending time furiously typing notes. If the federal government continues to simplify the disability tax credit, then instead of filling out 16 pages, it can be two simplified pages, and it might not even have to be done by a family doctor. It could be completed by other health professionals, and patients can be involved as well.
“Those are three ways to reduce administrative burden, so that we spend our time doing the things we love to do, that we’re trained to do, instead of doing an unnecessary amount of paperwork,” said Ogunyemi.
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