Interesting Ideas.

I am going to post some links to articles which I have been reading lately and find to be quite interesting.

The first is an interview with a Palliative Care physician from Montreal.  He is really the father of palliative care in Canada.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/die-softer-how-we-can-give-life-a-better-ending/article11173497/

The second is from the New Yorker and deals with the issue of rising costs in the health care system and some innovative ways to contain the costs.  The piece talks about health care "hot spotting", which is the idea of controlling costs by looking at the patients who end up costing the system the most.  In the article, the author gives the example that 1% of the patients in a particular city accounted for 1/3 of the total health care costs to the system!  This is astounding.  The article is dealing with the American health care system, but I think has some very good ideas which would also apply in the Canadian context.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/01/seeing-spots.html


Enjoy!