The Fraser Institute has come out with recommendations on how to improve Alberta’s health care system.
According to Associate Director at the Centre for Health Policy Studies at the Fraser Institute, Bacchus Barua, some of these changes have already taken place in other provinces.
“Contracting services out to third-party private clinics, which is something that Saskatchewan actually did. Simply establishing a centralized registry to pool patient referrals, funding hospitals based on activity which actually (will) incentivize the hospital to treat patients and compete with each other for patients.”
Barua said the Institute also looked at policies in other countries who use the universal health care system.
While many of these changes are necessary according to the study, Barua pointed out that something else needs to happen.
“It’s really just getting a different attitude about how to structure health care where you’re starting to put the patient first and the system second. What we tend to do in Canada quite often is prioritize the system and patients essentially have to fit within it.”
