January 18th, 2012
The morning media summons signalled that the leaders of the country’s provinces and territories were going to start the day on a positive note.
Day 1 of the council of the federation conference had been a downer. Unanimous agreement among the premiers on the need for more “dialogue” with Ottawa on funding for health care was an obvious prelude to asking for more money.
Near-instant rebuff from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “I’m not looking to spend more money,” he told the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge. “What I think we all want to see now is what their plan and their vision really is to innovate and to reform and to make sure the health care system’s going to be there for all of us.”
Enter the premiers’ working group on health care innovation, focus of Tuesday morning’s media event at the hotel on the Victoria harbour where the premiers were gathered for two days of meetings.
Taking the wraps off the proposal was host premier (and thus conference chair) Christy Clark, flanked by the two premiers who will steer a working group made up of the country’s health ministers, Robert Ghiz of Prince Edward Island and Brad Wall of Saskatchewan.
Was this a case of premiers trying to regain Ottawa’s attention, now that the most obvious route into the federal treasury had been blocked by the prime minister?
Not at all, said Wall. “The federal government is not needed for this work. They don’t deliver health care. The expertise is in the provinces and the territories, so we’re going to make these improvements.”
As for what the group will actually be working toward in terms of shared innovations, the first priorities are: Identifying best practices for clinical and surgical care, particularly on the most common procedures. Broadening the scope of allowable procedures for nurse practitioners and other licensed providers, as a way of promoting efficiency and reducing costs. Managing human resources, training and recruitment to reduce competitive poaching between provinces.
Later, the premiers may tackle more ambitious innovations, such as common procurement of drugs and other medical sup-plies. Does the country really need 13 separate approval agencies? as Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty challenged Monday.
Could this lead to the creation of common institutions to over-see, say, best practices? The short answer is “yes,” said both Ghiz and Wall.
But Wall really opened up the possibilities when he segued into a discussion of one of his own government’s innovations, namely using private clinics to reduce the province’s hefty surgical backlog.
A large clinic is scheduled to open next month in Saskatoon, with another to follow in Regina later this year.
The Saskatoon outlet will be operated by the same Calgary-based firm that has the New Westminster Surgical Clinic, opposite Royal Columbian hospital. The firm’s three-year con-tract with Saskatchewan calls for it to perform more than 7,000 surgical procedures a year, starting with pediatric dental surgery, moving up to ligament repairs, knee and shoulder arthroscopy, then cataracts.
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