Canadian vaccine candidates have been registered with the World Health Organization. And while the Pfizer and Moderna jabs have high efficacy rates, experts agree that society will need as many potential cures as possible to quickly and affordably eradicate the virus. Some vaccine candidates may be more effective in certain ages ...
What if 5 patients come to the emergency department at the same time. And what if all 5 patients need admission to the ICU and need to be put on a ventilator but there are only 2 ICU beds and only 2 ventilators available? How can this decision be made ...
Bill Flanagan is president and vice-chancellor of the University of Alberta. Amid the challenges of COVID-19, this week’s awarding of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine to University of Alberta virologist Dr. Michael Houghton could not have been better timed. Exactly when we most need it, the world honours an ...
Making a Dent in the Trillion-Dollar Problem: Toward Zero Defects Source: NEJM Catalyst Innovations In Care Delivery Dec 9 2020 Most efforts to eliminate defects in health care value have been piecemeal rather than systematic. Here is a framework for savings that can be achieved by eliminating defects in value. ...
Case One: BACKGROUNDA 66-year-old male presents with subacuteconfusion (encephalitis) and reports aweight loss of 40 pounds. His spinal fluid is abnormal and is sent to MayoClinic Laboratories for an AutoimmuneEncephalopathy evaluation. The evaluation detects an unclassified antibody, which isreported back to the treating physician. The patient is discovered to have ...
The smart approach to prescribing medications should avoid the usual " try this because it might work, or it might not work". The smart approach to prescribing medications should be based on the patient's unique genes. This is especially important for medications used for depression, anxiety, mood disorders and other ...
The idea of using design leadership for the healthcare ecosystem is likely a non starter for those who inhabit this space. But this is the most appropriate tool kit to bring to a system that does not work as a system. A patient with severe facial pain from trigeminal neuralgia ...
The motivation for this piece came from thinking deeply for two years about pharmacare. The thinking proved to be circular and went nowhere. And from a piece in the New York times today on the role of government in solving massive social problems. The private sector can't do that without ...
Treating mental health disorders with medications is an essential skill for doctors. That is the principal role of psychiatrists. They meet with the patient. They diagnose the problem and then write the prescription. The problem is that each prescription is a chemistry experiment. No one can predict how a patient ...
Health systems lack a model for operationalizing and scaling innovations, which must be built on a foundation capable of embracing meaningful changes, whether incremental or dramatic. Health systems are, on balance, very bureaucratic and have fixed structures which are not open to innovation. In fact, innovation is seen to be ...