Saturday, May 31, 2008

Primary Care Shortage in Australia

The shortage of primary care doctors with increased health care wait times is spreading well beyond the borders of Canada.

This week I read about the same problem in Australia where a mother cannot get an appointment for evaluation of a simple headache in her son. Another blogger (Geoff) takes a more analytical approach. There are two main problems; capacity and wait times. Better management of a practice (which might include open access scheduling) can alleviate some of the wait time issues. Ultimately, capacity in primary care needs to increase and that means luring family doctors away from specialties.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, it seems this problem is spreading, but I wouldn't say Canada is the source. I just believe it's caused by more and more expensive and structural health care in the developed world. I am selling health insurance with term life insurance and I think there is a huge potential of additional money pouring from pivate sphere, unfortunately, blocked by government. Until we will not be able to pour more money and lower wastage, nothing helps...
Lorne