A doctor who was praised for her calm defence of universal health care when she spoke before a powerful group of U.S. politicians in 2014 has written a new book outlining her vision for improving the quality of Canada鈥檚 health care system.
Nearly three years ago, Dr. Danielle Martin made international headlines after calmly and succinctly defending universal care when she testified at U.S. Senate sub-committee hearing examining Obamacare.
Video of her testimony went viral on YouTube, with more than 1.4 million views. Martin has since been named one of Canada鈥檚 most powerful doctors by The Medical Post.
With her new book, 鈥淏etter Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians,鈥� Martin is on a mission to bolster health care and reduce wait times across the country.
The six ideas outlined in Martin鈥檚 book are:
- Ensure every Canadian has regular access to a family doctor or other primary care provider
- Bring prescription drugs under medicare
- Reduce unnecessary tests and interventions
- Recognize health care delivery to reduce wait times and improve quality
- Implement a basic income guarantee to alleviate poverty, which is a major threat to health
- Scale up successful local innovations to a national level
鈥淚鈥檓 a family doctor working in the system every day, so I see the challenges and the cracks that my patients experience as they work their way through the system,鈥� Martin said on CTV鈥檚 Your Morning Wednesday. 鈥淏ut I think we鈥檝e been stuck in a conversation about, 鈥榠s the system good or is it bad? Is medicare worth preserving or do we just get rid of it?鈥�
鈥淎nd I think that that has stopped us from really focusing on the conversation we should be having which is, 鈥楬ow do we make it better?鈥欌��
One of Martin鈥檚 ideas is ensuring that every Canadian has regular access to a family doctor or other primary care provider.
The difficulty in getting a doctor鈥檚 appointment in a timely fashion, she said, has spurred the 鈥渞ise鈥� of the use of walk-in clinics, 鈥渨here people are getting convenient access to care but not necessarily the kind of relationship-based health care that we know is really the best things for our health.鈥�
In addition, she said there must be better communication between family physicians and the rest of the health-care system.
鈥淚 was in my office yesterday, and I discovered that a patient of mine had been admitted to the hospital who had a heart attack in a hospital just a few blocks from my office, but she had already been discharged and gone home and I had no idea that she had ever been in the hospital,鈥� Martin said. 鈥淪o we need to improve that communication.鈥�
Solution for wait times?
Martin said she wants to push back against the presumption that more is always better when it comes to health care. To reduce wait times, Martin suggests in her book that rather than surgeons keeping their own wait list, they should come together to create a shared list. In that scenario, a patient would be referred to a centralized list and then seen by the next available doctor.
Martin said a centralized wait list wouldn鈥檛 require more money 鈥� just a different way of thinking.
Creating 鈥渢eam-based鈥� care that involves not only doctors but nurse practitioners, dietitians, physiotherapists and other health-care workers would also help the system because it would improve access to care, reduce wait times and be less costly for the system overall, Martin said. 鈥淚n fact, sometimes a doctor is not the best person for you to see.鈥�
Unnecessary tests and interventions are also clogging up the system.
鈥淲e know for example, that almost one in three medical imaging procedures, whether it X-ray, MRI, CT (scan), ultrasound contributes no useful information to the management of that person鈥檚 case,鈥� Martin said.
Everyone should have access to such tests, 鈥渂ut if it鈥檚 not going to improve your health, or perhaps even harm you, we shouldn鈥檛 be doing it.鈥�
to learn about Martin鈥檚 ideas to bolster Canada鈥檚 health-care system.
