As a healthcare employee, I have personally seen an exponential increase in patient visits to emergency departments and ongoing access limitations on inpatient bed availability in two different Toronto organizations, one being a downtown academic hospital and the other being a community hospital. It is clear that patients are arriving to the emergency departments for a variety of illnesses at varying severity levels, simply due to not having a family doctor. This leaves most with the inability to obtain medical assessments by a general practitioner, thus resorting to seeking care at emergency departments. Oftentimes, the severity of their illness has progressed unnecessarily due to being untreated.
Primary health is extremely important in the health care system as it is the first point of access to care (Glazier et al., 2008). Primary health care providers consist of family doctors, general practitioners, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Primary care providers screen for diseases, treat medical conditions, give lifestyle advice, and provide ongoing care with medication and other treatments. They also refer people to specialists (such as surgeons or heart specialists) when more serious health problems develop (CIHI, 2023). Having a regular source of care has also been linked to increased preventive health care, and also to improved glycemic control for people with diabetes. Lack of access to a regular source of medical care has been associated with excess emergency department visits (Glazier et al., 2008).
Through further research I hope to gain more awareness on this topic, as I currently have a high level understanding on these issues. I am hoping to further appreciate the challenges and limitations Canadians are facing in obtaining primary care and what can be done to improve access to these health services. I am most interested to learn about the challenges being faced across Canada and to see what action has been proposed by the Federal and Provincial governments to improve this growing concern. The lack of primary health care in Canada is resulting in a shortage of family physicians, chronic diseases being inadequately monitored and prevented, and longer wait times in hospital emergency departments (Glazier et al., 2008). Given the current aforementioned health promotion concern, I am worried that what I will find, is little has been done to improve this emerging health concern to date. As with most matters in health promotion, it is extremely challenging to find one root cause of the issue. Similarly, I feel as though as I start to further investigate factors which contribute to the limitations of Canadians having access to primary health, they will expose further health promotion concerns related to gaps in healthcare, social determinants of health, and lack of initiatives to support improvements which also limit one’s access to primary care.
I am interested to learn about this topic as I feel as it will benefit my growth as a leader in healthcare. It will broaden my understanding as to what is causing the lack of primary care in Canada, Ontario, and more specifically Toronto. With this knowledge, I can apply it to my role as a Medical Imaging Manager and forecast whether potential governmental changes will assist in stabilizing emergency department volumes (resulting in an increase in patients requiring medical imaging procedures performed) or whether more resources and strategic planning need to be undertaken moving forward to better manage potential increases in demand.
References
Canadian Institute for Health Information. (2023, August 2). 88% of Canadians have a regular health provider but others struggle to access care. https://www.cihi.ca/en/taking-the-pulse-a-snapshot-of-canadian-health-care-2023/88-of-canadians-have-a-regular-health
Glazier, R. H., Moineddin, R., Agha, M. A., Zagorski, B., Hall, R., Manuel, D. G., Sibley, L. M., & Kopp, A. (2008, July). The impact of not having a primary care physician among people with chronic conditions. Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. https://www.ices.on.ca/publications/research-reports/the-impact-of-not-having-a-primary-care-physician-among-people-with-chronic-conditions/
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