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The current topic dominating the headlines of the news pertains to the financial downward spiral the world is reacting to. Governments around the globe are responding to this potential recession by injecting billions of dollars into major industries such as banks and auto companies to keep them afloat and keep the economic engines running. Having come from a background of healthcare, I am familiar with the concept of reacting to potential crises rather than proactively preparing and avoiding the situation. However, it is becoming clearer that the response of our governments to our economic situation can be compared to our healthcare system.

Despite what Michael Moore has led us to believe, the Canadian healthcare system that we view as enormously superior to the American healthcare disaster is not perfect. It is based on a reactionary premise. According the World Health Organization rankings of healthcare systems countries like Andorra (4^th), Malta (5^th), Singapore (6^th), and the United Kingdom (18^th) place ahead of Canada’s admired healthcare system, ranked 30^th overall. Perhaps most concerning to Canadians, the United States ranked 37^th. Not so far behind for a system that we look upon with such distain. So despite ranking in the top ten in expenditure per capita the WHO shows disconnect where overall health of our system and the approach we take to patient care earn us a 30^th place ribbon. Perhaps the reasons for this disconnect lies partially in the nature of our system. In healthcare classrooms across the country it is taught that healthcare is set up to combat and cure disease and ailments; a reactive system. For example, a diabetes program or a cancer clinic will always take priority in the minds of Canadians as well as funding models over a healthy living course or a non-smoking program, and let me state, to a certain extent, it should. But let’s evaluate the system for what it is, and consider the outcome if we could create a system in which we could prevent some of these diseases from developing or exacerbating symptoms? Aside from the obvious health benefits to the patients, the financial ramifications would be enormous. Let’s consider diabetes type II which has shown poor diet and a lack of exercise can contribute to the disease or worsening of symptoms often leading to hospital visits and admissions for such things as peripheral vascular disease and obesity. Of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Ontario’s 40 billion dollar budget, 10 percent is spent on combating the disease. In a time where funding is being cut not increased, if we could save a small percentage of that budget by implementing healthy living and wellness programs throughout communities in the province, tens of millions of dollars could be redirected to other areas of need. Looking at the National Health Service (NHS), the UK’s version of OHIP (remember, ranking 12 spots HIGHER than Canada), healthcare practitioners are encouraged to make these changes with financial incentives such as funding physician visits per preventative treatment.

Now I realize the proactive approach is the less glamorous of the two options. At the end of the day, there is no answer, there is no cure, and there is no television show re-enacting the action packed education session. I also realize it certainly isn’t as simple as placing a few clinics around town and pocketing the millions tomorrow. The proactive approach to providing health care requires long term projects involving major restructuring and are typically unpopular with politicians because they rarely have the opportunity to see the effects of the change during their political term; making the proactive style a hard sell. We are at a point in time where we should start thinking bigger then ourselves and start designing our system in order to prevent some of these diseases ahead of time rather then reacting to them when it’s too late for both the system and the patient. Can we not try to learn something from the situation major industries such as banking and the auto sector find themselves in? Or will we continue to react after the crises has occurred instead of investing in our healthcare system before we find ourselves looking up on the WHO ranking and from our wallets at our unfortunate Americans who pay out of pocket for their healthcare.

Posted: March 01, 2009, 9:17 PM by Sean Gehring in the Financial Post Executive Blog

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