Canadian Health Information Podcast Canadian Institute for Health Information

From staffing shortages and physician burnout to department closures and lengthy wait times, there is little question that Canada’s emergency departments are overwhelmed. Some EDs are so busy that hallways are packed with gurneys of patients waiting days to be admitted or, in some cases, choosing to walk away without receiving the emergency care they need. In this episode of the CHIP, host Avis Favaro sits down with guests working on the front lines to discuss the ongoing crisis gripping Canada’s emergency departments, the impact on workers and patients, and what’s being done to ease the burden:

• Dr. Fraser Mackay, emergency physician and assistant director of Workforce Planning for the Department of Emergency Medicine in Saint John, New Brunswick

• David Leary, a veteran paramedic and spokesperson for Ambulance Paramedics of British Columbia.

This episode is available in English only.

As Canada’s population ages, it is expected that an increasing number of people will become frail. Individuals living with frailty have an increased risk of the following: hospitalizations, longer hospital stays, hospital readmissions, emergency department visits and in-hospital death. New data shows that more than one-third of all hospitalized older adults in Canada are at risk of frailty. On this episode of the Canadian Health Information Podcast, host Avis Favaro speaks with Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, clinical research professor of frailty and aging at Dalhousie University in Halifax, about the harms of frailty and what we can do to better protect older adults at risk.

This episode is available in English only.

Learn more about frailty risk here: https://www.dal.ca/sites/gmr/our-tools/clinical-frailty-scale.html

Hospital harm — medical conditions that patients experience in hospital that they did not have when they were admitted — is on the rise. A new CIHI analysis shows that 1 in 17 patients admitted to hospital was unintentionally harmed during their stay. Meanwhile, nurses and other health care workers charged with caring for patients in Canada are struggling. Sick time and overtime hours are skyrocketing. In this episode of the CHIP, we are joined by Kate Parson, Health Human Resources program lead at CIHI; Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions; Kathleen Finlay, founder and CEO of The Compassion Innovation Lab and founder of the Center for Patient Protection ; and Annette Elliott Rose, vice president of Clinical Care Strategy and chief nurse executive at IWK Health to discuss these findings and what they mean for patients and the people who care for them.

This episode is available in English only.

Sky-high temperatures, wildfires clouding cities with smoke, damaging floods and many people suffering from mental health issues related to anxiety about global warming. In this episode of the CHIP, we are joined by Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, to discuss the effects of climate change on health, some of the larger changes that are needed and what average people in Canada can do to help themselves and the environment.

This episode is available in English only.

The federal government reached a funding agreement recently with Canada’s provinces and territories that will add roughly $46.2 billion in new money over 10 years to be directed at 4 priority areas: family health services, health workers and backlogs, mental health and substance use, and a modernized health system.

In this episode of the CHIP, we speak about what this agreement will mean for average people in Canada and how quickly we can expect to see the effect of this funding. Our guests are Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, president and CEO of Healthcare Excellence Canada; Annamarie Fuchs, a former registered nurse and author of Partners in Health Conversations; and Teri Price, whose brother died tragically in 2012 after falling through the cracks in our health care system.

This episode is available in English only.

More people in Canada are receiving palliative care near the end of their lives than ever — but a lot of work remains. A new CIHI analysis shows there are still many who are not getting the care they need. In this episode of the CHIP, host Avis Favaro speaks with Dr. Naheed Dosani — a palliative care physician at St. Michael’s Hospital at Unity Health Toronto, the lead physician for Palliative Education and Care for the Homeless (PEACH) at Inner City Health Associates and medical director at Kensington Hospice — about the future of palliative care in Canada and why it is such a critical part of health care.

This episode is available in English only.