Rebecca Walberg

We’re accustomed to thinking of Canadian healthcare problems in terms of splashy failures and gross inefficiencies - people dying in ER waiting rooms, cancer victims who have to pay for their own chemotherapy, 18 month waits for surgery.  The problems with our healthcare system are pervasive, though, and cause a lot of problems that don’t register on the radar for most of us, but nonetheless cost the system time, money, and sometimes lives.  If all Canadians had an Electronic Health Record - think the medical equivalent of a credit report, with the basic facts easily accessible by anyone you allow to acces it - we’d spend less money, repeat fewer tests, and get treated more safely and effectively.  More on EHRs and the high cost of not investing in our system sensibly here.