Making life easier for healthcare professionals in Canada
June 15, 2009
In order to function at optimum performance levels, everyone needs down time. Not only is it critical to your health to be able to relax, put your feet up and catch much needed sleep; it’s equally important to gather with family, laugh with friends and engage in recreation that revives the body and mind. The one group of people who you’d think would be the most likely to heed this healthy-living imperative would be: health care workers, who know, from training and experience, that you have to take care of yourself.
Too often, medical personnel are the most overworked of all workers. Thankfully, here in New Brunswick, provincial health authorities have done something important to help alleviate the stress and long hours experienced by doctors and other medical staff. The Province of New Brunswick has implemented one universal remote access solution for all the hospitals and physicians in the province.
Doctors in the province are concerned about the delay in implementing their new contract will have on recruitment efforts and I think many people outside the medical profession can empathize as we all experience the negative consequences of the economic downturn.
However, the provincial health authority has recently added one incentive that may have a positive impact on recruitment and retention – remote access to health care systems for all physicians in the province.
This may not seem like a big deal to those of use who work in the business world. After all, we’re often so wired into work, we have to turn everything off just to get a break. But for doctors, long hours stuck in the hospital are often the norm. We’ve all seen the dramatic depictions on the medical drama shows on TV: tired physicians, sleeping in their white smocks in broom closets or locker rooms (do they have locker rooms in hospitals?).
To be able to securely access lab reports, electronic medical records, X-rays and CT scans, dictation and transcriptions, remotely, and interact with all the other applications and systems contained within the walls of the hospital, means that doctors and hospital administrators can go home! That’s just how important remote access for health care can be.
I think sometimes we patients tend to think of doctors in the same way we thought of teachers in elementary school – “don’t they live in the classroom?” Children are always surprised to meet their teacher when shopping with a parent in the grocery store. “You mean she eats just like us?” Sometimes I see my doctor walking home from his office, getting some daily exercise, and I think to myself, “Wow, he’s just like a regular person.”
Hospital workers are real people, who need to go home sometimes, see their kids, barbecue, get some sleep. Anything that can make a difference in their lives, including remote access to health care technology, is a big deal in my books.
In Canada, health care workers bear much of the downside of universal health care and we all benefit greatly from their extra efforts. I’m glad to see that doctors in New Brunswick can catch an even break from a remote access solution that can make their lives easier.
