Layers of operation. Profit and gift and a tiered health care system by risa
Ralph Klien and the provice of Alberta have released a proposal for their health care system. We may live in the “developed” world but we are still trying to get this health and care thing figured out. (Read a Globe and Mail article about Alberta’s new plan here.)
The proposal, as Ralph says, is not set in stone, but is the product of public consultations:
“Since May I’ve travelled across the province and asked Albertans what they want for health care. Their responses have been consistent. Albertans want assurances they will continue to receive public health care, and they want better access and more choice,” said Alberta Health and Wellness Minister Iris Evans. “Our approach will complement the public system with a plan that provides for enhanced or optional health services for those who both want it and can afford it. No Albertan will be denied access to basic health services because they cannot afford it.”
They’ve already implemented a first stage of their uber-plan with the Alberta Wait list Registry,
a lovely, light and functional website built with css and javascript. This site allows you to access doctors schedules and waiting times. Initially this seems like a nice featurette but with little impact on the wait times themselves; but the secondary possible, logical effect of this new degree of visibility is that patients can find and choose doctors that don’t have a 3 month long waiting period if their regular physician has suddenly gotten too popular.
This gels well with the administrations rhetoric about finding and negotiating around bottlenecks. One second layer of functionality I would recommend for this website, one that I think would increase patient satisfaction even further, is a rating system/section where patients can post whether a doctor is all hype or really worth the wait. With space for comments, I’m picturing an adapted forum set up, this could evolve into a real resource for doctors and their employers as well. A way for people to communicate about those intangible things that make a doctor truly bad or good: whether she was kind, whether he listened, whether, you were misdiagnosed, whatever.
This added communication between patients and the Health Care System builds on the open source principles that are, it seems to me, already inherent in Klien’s Third Way. By guaranteeing a free level of accessible, high quality service, and supplementing this with diverse paid services to ease the pressure off the public ones and even funnel a little cash back, Alberta’s Health Care, coincidentally or not, echoes the business strategies of companies like Red Hat and more recent versions of the tiered process like Flickr and Publishers Database.
These innovative combinations of free and paid, socialist and capitalist, organization are rife with potential. Time, and our insistent analysis of their progress, will tell if they are able to remain balanced and dedicated to the public good, or if they allow themselves to be seduced by the powerful perspectives and desires of the paying class.
Third Way plans for 2005 and 2006 include:
* Changing regulations to provide choice in hospital rooms and enhanced medical goods and services.
* Developing a Health Care Assurance Act for Albertans.
* Taking serious action on wellness.
* Making children’s health a top priority.
* Improving access to mental health services.
* Implementing an Electronic Health Record for all Albertans.
* Expanding primary health care services.
* Improving access.
* Controlling spiraling drug costs.
* Improving the long term care system.
* Increasing the number of health care providers.
* Improving health services in rural communities.
“Our Third Way is about evolution, not revolution,” said Evans. “It’s about getting on with providing Albertans with better health care.”
The public is encouraged to provide input about the Third Way on the Alberta Health and Wellness website at www.health.gov.ab.ca.
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The document containing detailed proposed changes can be viewed at http://www.health.gov.ab.ca/about/reform/getting.html.
August 5th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Alberta Health responds as follows:
Thank you for contacting Alberta Connects.
Thank you for your web development forum suggestion, we will take in into consideration for future development. Alberta Health and Wellness follows the Government of Alberta Cross Government Internet Committee guidelines for websites. Contact us information is located in the top right hand corner of most websites, it is also included in content when applicable. This government appreciates feedback from Albertans.
As for your suggestion on the rating of physicians, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta is responsible for quality of care and the performance of physicians. The Alberta Waitlist Registry website now contains a link to the College website. You can contact the college directly with your suggestion through their website at; http://www.cpsa.ab.ca/home/home.asp
Alberta Connects is constantly updated to provide you with important information about Alberta programs and services. We invite you to visit us soon.
Alberta Connects
Toll-Free 310-4455
Internet http://www.gov.ab.ca
(AC-101989)
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