New Health Funding Model has Potential

(Aired on April 13, 2010)

If you have followed this program over the years, you'll know I have constantly pushed the government to try new ways to fix the broken health care model. That's why I will not criticize a new plan announced yesterday by Health Minister Kevin Falcon to offer hospitals incentives to save money. The plan will give hospitals a bonus if they deliver acute care on budget.

The plan is called a "patient-focused funding model". There are 16 countries who have tried this plan in some way, shape or form, apparently with mixed results. If, as the Minister says, we wind up putting more patients through the system, reduce surgery wait times, and find innovative ways to deal with patients, it will be a good thing. It certainly puts the pressure on hospitals to ensure they follow best practices to get the job done, and maybe it will encourage hospitals like Royal Inland to start thinking out of the box to get the job done.

I think there are probably things we haven't even thought of yet to fix the system, and maybe this will cause a new braintrust to emerge who can find improvements.

On the down side, I think there is a real potential to push through the so-called "quick" surgeries like knee and hip replacements, and forget about providing care for heart patients and chronically ill patients. Those patients require much longer care, and somehow they have to be factored into the new system. If they don't, then the system is not doing it right.

Falcon is right about one thing, we can't spend our way out of the problems. I've said that for years. Maybe in that sense, government is finally starting to listen. And I will wait to make a judgment on the success or failure of this new program. It has the potential, if it's done right, to stimulate some creative juices and perhaps make us find new solutions. But if those solutions come at the expense of heart patients, who are going to become more and more a big problem to deal with as the population ages, if it comes at the expense of hospital cleanliness, or proper lab services, or proper diagnostic care, or proper support staffing levels, then it's just a wasted effort. The proof of this will definitely be in the pudding.