Alex Cooke of Global News reports on the concerns of Doctors Nova Scotia president, Dr. Leisha Hawker that includes recruitment, retention, and primary care.
“Primary care is the foundation of the health-care system, and right now that foundation’s not very strong,” Hawker told Global News.
Hawker believes virtual care is here to stay, but due to it being basically “started overnight” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic “without much planning,” now is the time to further solidify its role in the health-care system.
“So the key now is to really start planning: how does it work best? What scenarios … are best suited for virtual care, versus what problems really should be dealt with in person?”(Cooke, 2022)
Dr. Leisha Hawker works at the North End Community Health Centre. She comments that it is a “really good model” for collaborative health that focuses on the specific needs of the community.
“We have community engagement asking our patients and those in the neighbourhood what this community needs, and we start working on developing those programs,” she said.
“So if we had a community health centre in Digby, or Yarmouth, or somewhere else, they might not need the same program that our community in the north end of Halifax needs, but that’s the key to a collaborative community health centre – it can be unique to that individual community.” (Cooke, 2022)
Lyndsay Armstrong in reporting for the Canadian Press notes Brendan Elliot, a spokesman for Nova Scotia Health, said in an email that there are between 150 and 200 virtual visits available on a typical weekday, available to the 120,400 people in the province without a family doctor. He acknowledged that demand is high and said the province is trying to recruit more doctors and nurses to take part.
Zen Tharani, founder and CEO of Vancouver-based digital consulting firm Xenex Consulting Inc., said in an interview that challenges are expected in the early stage of virtual care implementation, but a bottleneck at the booking stage is a problem.
“It really defeats the purpose” of virtual care, which should be increasing access to medical care and improving the patient experience, he said.
Tharani said it’s very positive to see that provinces are using virtual care to fill in some of the gaps caused by a shortage of primary care providers, and agrees that limits should be removed from virtual care whenever possible.
“Why would you want to put limitations on innovation and accessibility in that way?” he asked.
Tharani said that while virtual care does not work for everything, there’s potential to use it strategically to increase efficiency in pre- and post-operative care, emergency medicine and mental health care. (Armstrong, 2022)
Jean Laroche of CBC News reports that Nova Scotia NDP leader, Claudia Chender, is worried that patients who can't get a free primary medical appointment will pay to get one.
Chender says people who cannot get a free government appointment are just a few computer clicks away from accessing Maple's for-profit platform which boasts users can "see a doctor in minutes."
"You know, you can either get it for free through the Nova Scotia government in theory, although most people can't actually access it, or you can pay Maple," said Chender. "And you know, when we talk about privatization, this isn't an abstract conversation.
"If someone needs to see a doctor, they need to see a doctor. And if they have $20, they're going to pay, and if they don't have $20, they're not going to see a doctor." (Laroche, n.d.)
The initial experiences in virtual primary care point to some health care scenarios that can improve response to patient needs even as the proximity of government paid service to private and possibly more responsive service threatens to prefer ability to pay over need.
References
Armstrong, L. (2022, December 7). Billed as remedy for doctor shortage, virtual medicine in N.S. hits bottleneck | Globalnews.ca. Global News. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://globalnews.ca/news/9331307/ns-virtual-medicine-bottleneck/
Cooke, A. (2022, June 6). New Doctors N.S. president on burnout, backlogs and embracing virtual care - Halifax | Globalnews.ca. Global News. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://globalnews.ca/news/8900462/doctors-ns-new-president-2022/
Laroche, J. (n.d.). CBC News - Latest Canada, World, Entertainment and Business News. CBC. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/virtual-care-doctors-nurse-practitioners-maple-1.6679451?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
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