Dr. Hartley Stern, Executive Director at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH), addressed members of the prestigious Canadian Club October 29, 2012 at a luncheon held at the Saint-James Club.
Speaking to leaders in business, politics, and international affairs, Dr. Stern discussed challenges that the JGH and other healthcare institutions in the country are currently facing. With healthcare expenditures reaching over 50% of GDP expenditures, Québec is entering an era in which critical decisions must be made with regards to the structure of its healthcare system.
Dr. Stern said the JGH is well positioned to cope with—and share strategies about—the most rapidly aging segments of society, having gained valuable experience in treating a disproportionately elderly patient population since the late 1970s.
Society must also recognize the crucial importance of general practitioners as members of multi-disciplinary healthcare teams—something already under way in the Goldman Herzl Family Practice Centre at the JGH and especially in the Herzl CRIU Walk-in Centre, which “has provided or helped to find regular care for at least 1,000 individuals who previously had no family doctor.”
“Since patients should be fully informed decision-makers in their own care, hospitals’ strengths and weaknesses must be shared publicly, with peer pressure among institutions motivating improvements in quality,” Dr. Stern said. For this reason, last year the JGH became the first Quebec hospital to disclose data about its performance. “We continue to update this information on our website and we encourage other hospitals to follow suit.”
To read the full press release click here
To watch the full video of the conference click here
October 29, 2012