Accountability by Design: Moving Primary Care Reform Ahead in Alberta

The ethics of accountability in managed care reform.

Two notions of accountability embodied in proposals to reform managed care have different ethical implications. Market accountability requires plans to inform purchasers and consumers about performance and options, in theory legitimizing limits to care through consumer choice. Recognizing the limits of consumer choice, accountability for reasonableness requires that the rationales for limits to...

Communities and primary care reform.

Documenting alcohol use in primary care in Alberta.

Alcohol consumption is a threat to public health in Canada, contributing to morbidity, injury, and mortality.1 Although primary care physicians are encouraged to screen for alcohol use, studies have found that they often neglect to do so because they lack confidence or the skills necessary to successfully address patients’ alcohol use problems.2 As well, guidelines on documenting alcohol use do...

Moving beyond access: achieving equity in state health care reform.

The Institute of Medicine's 2003 Unequal Treatment report raised the public's and policymakers' awareness of racial and ethnic health care disparities, but federal policy-makers have implemented few of the report's more than two dozen recommendations. State health care reform efforts, however, are gaining support around the country and have great potential to reduce health care inequality. This...

Changing times, moving ahead!

In last one decade there have been further advancements in understanding various aspects of psychiatric disorders. Hence, it was thought that time has come to acknowledge the advances in Psychiatry to be translated into the practice of Psychiatry in India. With this thinking, I must place on record that during Hyderabad ANCIPS on January 11th, 2015, the Executive Council, under the leadership o...