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| Kingston, Ontario |
Although the Olympics has ended, I still feel the urge to tune in for a late night review of the day's events; I'm also looking forward to the next major sporting events in 2014 and 2016.
Funnily enough, these same schedules remind me of the implementation of Electronic Medical Record systems (EMRs) right here in Ontario; since getting involved with this particular industry sector in 2008, the deadline just keeps getting extended.
For example, the OntarioMD website is now advising that the EMR Adoption Program has been extended until 2014.
This state of affairs has not gone unnoticed, even amongst doctors themselves; for example, a very interesting Healthcare Papers article entitled: "Of Honey and Health Policy: The Limits of Sweet, Sticky Substances in Reforming Primary Care" has the author (Danielle Martin MD, CCFP) asking the question: Is honey enough?
In the above-mentioned article, Ms Martin discusses how incentives have been used to move healthcare providers from individual care to more team-based/better coverage systems.
However, she posits that honey alone will lead to slow and incremental change for healthcare in Canada.
The clincher for me comes when she comments that one of the policy tools Government has -- authority, is missing from primary care in Canada.
She goes on to state that:
"Governments have some ability to legislate and regulate some of the conditions necessary for true primary care renewal... So far they have treaded lightly in the area of primary care other than to invest heavily in incentives; but more could be done."
I've long been an advocate of such policy initiatives as the EHR stimulus being implemented by our friends to the south; basically beginning in 2011, a healthcare provider can claim funding -- should you not have a functioning Electronic Health Record (EHR) system in place by 2015, any reimbursement claims you submit to the Government will be penalized on an annually increasing scale.
This is perhaps the type of action I sense Ms. Martin is calling for; coming from an insider, I find this particularly refreshing.
Until next time, stay healthy!
Ernest A. James
President & CEO
Regal Informatics Inc.
