Nunavut sets up mobile tuberculosis clinic in Naujaat as outbreak grows

April 17, 2024admin

Nunavut sets up mobile tuberculosis clinic in Naujaat as outbreak grows

Nunavut's Health department is holding a TB screening clinic in Naujaat until May 30. (Havard Gould/CBC News - image credit) — Nunavut’s Health department is holding a TB screening clinic in Naujaat until May 30. (Havard Gould/CBC News – image credit)

Nunavut’s Health department has opened a community-wide mobile testing clinic in Naujaat, in the hopes of testing as many people as possible for tuberculosis.

It’s been almost a year since a TB outbreak was first declared in the community of 1,200 people on May 16, 2023.

Kevin Tegumiar, Naujaat’s mayor, said the hamlet has been asking for such a clinic for several months.

“Without accurate numbers, we’re not really sure where we are. This clinic will help clear things up,” Tegumiar said.

Tegumiar said three Naujaat residents have died since the outbreak began in the community. Nunavut’s Health department confirmed those numbers in a recent interview with CBC.

Since January 2023, 21 people in Naujaat have been diagnosed with active TB.

Another 118 others have been diagnosed with latent TB, according to the department, which is almost double the number reported in November last year.

Hundreds of tests

Health officials have set a goal to test 1,000 people in Naujaat for TB by the end of the clinic, on May 30.

“We hope that every one of them are coming and get screened during the time that we are here,” said Ekua Agyemang, Nunavut’s deputy chief public health officer. “When TB is identified early, the disease is very easy to treat in the community.”

The Health department said they will deploy a team of health-care workers, including a doctor, four nurses, an epidemiologist, a radiology technician and laboratory technician.

Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, will also visit Naujaat this week as part of a tour alongside Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. officials and the territory’s health minister. Tam will also visit Pond Inlet and Iqaluit.

“Though TB will be

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Health Care

April 6, 2024admin

B.C. health care: Parents question status of Surrey hip clinic

It’s been two years since the province said it had plans to expand a clinic to help children with hip dysplasia and clubfoot. The clinic was supposed to open at Surrey Memorial Hospital, but many parents told CTV News they’ve received no update on the clinic’s status.

Nicola Robinson’s eight-year-old son Matthew was born with left clubfoot. She said the last time she received information about the hip clinic was in the Spring of 2022.

“We’re really left in the dark, and the upsetting part is not having that continuity of care for my child but also for so many families in the Fraser region,” she said. “It’s just not kids with clubfoot. It’s hip dysplasia, it’s leg length discrepancy. It’s kids with any joint and limb condition that are being left really in the unknown.”

Specialist leaving

Robinson is one of hundreds of parents worried about the future of their children’s care – especially following the departure of Dr. Magdalena Tarchala, a paediatric orthopaedic sports medicine surgeon.

According to Fraser Health, Tarchala has decided to leave her practice at Royal Columbian Hospital at the end of this month.

Robinson said she found out about Tarchala’s departure through a social media post through a Facebook support group.

“For us, it was very upsetting, unsettling, shocking to hear that she was leaving,” she said.

In 2022, Ian Paton, a BC United MLA for Delta South sent a letter to the Health Ministry asking about pediatric care following the retirement of Dr. Shafique Pirani, a long-term physician who served the Fraser Health region.

In a response letter dated, March 29, 2022, Minister Adrian Dix said, Fraser Health was in the process of developing a comprehensive pediatric surgical program with a two-phased approach

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Health Care

March 29, 2024admin

Minor injury and illness clinic set to open in Brandon this fall, premier says

The province is banking on a $1-million investment to reduce ER wait times with the opening of a minor injury and illness clinic in Brandon.

The clinic, expected to open in September, is part of $17 million earmarked in the provincial budget, rolling out April 2, to open five primary care clinics and three minor injury and illness clinics in Manitoba, Premier Wab Kinew announced at the Brandon Regional Health Centre on Wednesday.

“This minor injury and illness clinic, it effectively functions somewhat like an urgent care centre,” Kinew said. “It’s for those less acute conditions.

“It’s not quite at the level of ER, but you do need to get addressed right away.”

Mayor Jeff Fawcett said emergency rooms in Brandon and across Canada are facing challenges.

He said it’s also been concerning to see walk-in clinics closing in the city.

A person stands at a podium as people fill a staircase listening. — Uzoma Asagwara. minister of health, seniors and long-term care, says the clinic will help reduce wait times at the Brandon Regional Health Centre emergency room. (Chelsea Kemp/CBC)

“Our ER in Brandon has been stretched,” Fawcett said. “This is a well-needed service in Brandon.”

The Brandon clinic will be staffed by doctors, nurse practitioners and nurses who will provide primary health-care services and support for minor health-care concerns. Patients will be able to book same-day appointments and connect with health-care providers via the Virutal Care Resource Centre.

It will operate 12 hours a day, seven days a week as a starting point, Kinew said. An interim site will open in Brandon this September while Prairie Mountain Health identifies a permanent location.

Brandon is a growing city and health-care needs are growing in tandem, said Uzoma Asagwara, health, seniors and long-term care minister.

The province estimates the new clinic could see more than 700 people every week..

“Wait times are

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Health Advice

February 14, 2024admin

Cleveland Clinic surveys Americans using health technology

OHIO — A new nationwide survey conducted by the Cleveland Clinic revealed three in five Americans believe AI in health care will lead to better heart care.

The clinic said despite the higher number putting faith in technology, many remain cautious of how they use artificial intelligence regarding their health.

What You Need To Know

The clinic said despite the higher number putting faith in technology, many remain cautious of how they use AI

Seventy-two percent of Americans believe the health advice from computer chatbots is accurate, but 89%, said they would seek a doctor’s advice before acting on the bots recommendations

Only one in five of Americans have sought health advice from a chatbot or other form of AI

Through the use of monitoring technology, most Americans are seeing significant physical and mental benefits

Seventy-two percent of Americans believe the health advice from computer chatbots is accurate, but nine in 10, or 89%, said they would seek a doctor’s advice before acting on the bots recommendations.

“The increasing number of advancements in AI and in digital health has the potential to transform health care delivery, especially in cardiovascular care,” said Dr. Samir Kapadia, chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, in a news release.

Only one in five (22%) of Americans have sought health advice from a chatbot or other form of AI, but 65% said they would be comfortable receiving heart health advice from AI.

“As clinicians, we are getting a lot of questions from our patients about this topic,” said Kapadia. “For this year’s survey, we wanted to better understand how people feel about emerging tools like AI and if their health is benefiting from technologies that are already on the market, such as wearables. As these continue to advance, we’d like to educate our patients about

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Health Advice

February 9, 2024admin

Most Americans Using Health Monitoring Technology are Experiencing Significant Physical and Mental Benefits – Cleveland Clinic Newsroom

As advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) continue to revolutionize healthcare, findings from a new national Cleveland Clinic survey illustrate how Americans feel about the emerging role of AI in healthcare with 3 in 5 Americans believing that AI will lead to better heart care.

Despite the optimistic outlook, individuals are still cautious about how they use AI when it comes to their health. While 72% of Americans believe the health advice they receive from a computer chatbot is accurate, 9 in 10 (89%) said they would still seek doctor’s advice before acting on its recommendations.

In addition, although 65% said they would be comfortable receiving heart health advice from AI technology, only 1 in 5 (22%) Americans have sought health advice from a computer chatbot or other form of AI technology.

“The increasing number of advancements in AI and in digital health has the potential to transform healthcare delivery, especially in cardiovascular care,” said Samir Kapadia, M.D., chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic.

“As clinicians, we are getting a lot of questions from our patients about this topic,” said Dr. Kapadia. “For this year’s survey, we wanted to better understand how people feel about emerging tools like AI and if their health is benefiting from technologies that are already on the market, such as wearables. As these continue to advance, we’d like to educate our patients about the role of AI and technology in assisting healthcare professionals, rather than replacing them.”

The survey also examined how Americans are using technology to improve their heart health, with 50% saying they use at least one type of technology to monitor their health. Daily step count is the most tracked health-related metric, followed by heart rate and calorie burn among Americans who use such technology. Notably, one-quarter (23%) of Americans said they

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Health Advice

February 7, 2024admin

Americans will use AI for heart health but still want advice from a doctor, Cleveland Clinic finds

A majority of Americans believe AI will improve heart care in the long run — but for now, there are trust issues, according to the Cleveland Clinic’s annual national survey about cardiac care.

About eight in 10 Americans said they would consult a ChatBot for health advice but nine in 10 said they’d still get a doctor’s advice before acting on anything a computer or device tells them, the survey released Thursday found.

Dr. Tamanna Singh, co-director of Cleveland Clinic’s Sports Cardiology Center, said the results show people are open to recommendations from AI, but that doesn’t mean technology replaces a doctor.

“There’s still a lot of trust that’s put into [people’s] providers, even more so than some of this reliability on the accuracy of diagnoses just based upon something as simple as a chatbox,” Singh said.

Dr. Samir Kapadia, chairperson of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, added that doctors are receiving an influx of inquiries on AI in health care. This year’s survey was aimed at better understanding how patients feel about its use, Kapadia said.

“The increasing number of advancements in AI and in digital health has the potential to transform healthcare delivery, especially in cardiovascular care,” Kapadia said in a news release.

The survey also shed light on how many Americans use technology to monitor their health. Half of respondents said they use at least one type of technology to monitor their health. Daily step count is the most-tracked health metric, followed by heart rate and calorie burn. Nearly one-quarter of Americans said they use monitoring technology to find motivation or accountability for achieving their daily activity goals, according to the survey.

Singh said those findings give her reason for optimism.

“What truly excites me is the way that we could use a lot of

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Health Care

February 3, 2024admin

AB Shoppers Drug Mart clinic plan won’t improve access to primary health care

The plan announced Thursday by an Ontario-based drugstore chain to add new stores in Alberta and renovate older ones does nothing to improve access to primary health care in this province.

So why was it touted by three cabinet ministers as if it were an earth-shaking development that would ease Alberta’s ongoing crisis in access to health care caused by, among other things, shortages of physicians and nurses, rampaging respiratory infections, and chaotic administrative changes to Alberta Health Services (AHS)?

A statement published on the website of the regulatory college for Alberta’s pharmacists last fall explains that if pharmacists use the term “clinic” to describe their business, they must make it clear that it is not a medical clinic, and that no physicians offer services from the location.

“If a pharmacy team chooses to use the concept of ‘clinic’ when identifying or advertising their pharmacy, they must include the pharmacy’s name and differentiate their services from that of a medical clinic,” said the Alberta College of Pharmacy (ACP) statement, a sentence emphasized in boldface type.

The ACP statement explains that allowing pharmacies to pretend they are a species of medical clinic would require a change in the Pharmacy and Drug Regulation of the Pharmacy and Drug Act.

The statement goes on to note that pharmacies must choose the name under which they intend to operate and that name must be approved by the ACP.

“The approved operating name must be used to support the public in knowing that the location is a pharmacy, what health services are being provided, that the services are being provided by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (if applicable), and where they should expect to be able to access their health record of the services received,” reads the ACP statement.

“The public must know, without

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Health Care

January 22, 2024admin

Flagship clinic to take big bite out of wait list for family docs

If Karen Parker’s numbers hold true, the number of Cochranites waiting in line for a family doctor could be cut by nearly 60 per cent in one fell swoop when her new nurse practitioners clinic opens this spring.

Parker’s will be the first nurse practitioner clinic to open in Alberta under newly relaxed rules that came into effect when the provincial government announced they were going ahead with an idea that has been brewing for a few years.

In an interview with The Eagle this week, Parker said she’s been researching the clinic idea for about four years. She has met with a number of stakeholders in Cochrane, including the Cochrane and Area Health Foundation, physicians, and Innovate Cochrane.

That research indicated about half of Cochrane residents have no family doctor.

An independently owned and operated nurse practitioner (NP) clinic would provide a new option for publicly funded primary care for those who have not been able to find a family doctor.

New patients would visit the clinic, chose an NP to interview, and then be assigned to the roster for that provider. A family nurse practitioner, so to speak.

Anyone choosing to participate in the clinic would not be able to have a family doctor as well as an NP assigned to them.

Parker said the NPs would have the ability to refer patients to specialists they have good working relationships with, just like family doctors currently do.

When fully operational, with 10 nurse practitioners servicing 1,000 patients each, that could mean 10,000 Cochranites who formerly had no family doctor would

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Department Health

January 21, 2024admin

Province adding more physician hours to minor injury clinic at Winnipeg’s HSC

The province of Manitoba is adding more physician hours to the Health Sciences Centre’s minor treatment clinic to increase its capacity over the next four weeks and help reduce wait times in the hospital’s emergency department.

This additional funding means the clinic will have another physician for six hours a day, seven days a week during a four-week pilot project, said Dr. Manon Pelletier, HSC’s chief medical officer, at a news conference Friday.

Until now, the clinic — which treats patients with less-urgent needs — has typically been staffed with one doctor and one nurse practitioner per shift, which can slow things down, Pelletier said.

“When we’re able to have more than one provider in the clinic, we’re able to pull a lot more patients and see them a lot sooner,” she said.

The clinic serves about 30 to 40 patients a day, with about 2,100 patients diverted to the clinic since last fall, she said.

It’s hard to know exactly how many more patients the clinic could serve with the additional staffing, Pelletier said, but she estimated it could allow the clinic to treat at least a dozen more patients a day.

The clinic opened in August to divert patients from the emergency room at Manitoba’s largest hospital. Those patients account for about 14 per cent of visits to HSC’s emergency department, health officials said at Friday’s news conference.

For now, the expanded physician hours are only set to last for four weeks so that the province can measure how much of an effect the change has, said Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara.

Depending on how things go, the pilot could be extended. The model could also be put in place in other hospitals, Asagwara said.

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook said it’s good to see the expansion of

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Health Care

December 7, 2023admin

Calgary clinic accused of offering two-tiered health care

Health Canada says it has asked Alberta Health to investigate whether the clinic is providing privatized health care

Published Dec 06, 2023 • Last updated 12 hours ago • 4 minute read

The Foothills Professional Building, the location of JW Health in northwest Calgary, was photographed on Friday, December 1, 2023. Gavin Young/Postmedia

Health Canada says it has asked Alberta Health to look into whether a Calgary-based clinic is providing privatized health care.

Last week, Calgarians took to the internet messaging board Reddit to criticize JW Health, a clinic across the street from Foothills Medical Centre, that claims to offer a suite of “uninsured” services for a $2,980 annual block fee.

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Tag: clinic

Specialist leaving

What You Need To Know

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