Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Healthcare Staffing: Canadian Style

Canada_flag1 I spent the last couple of days in Canada and learned some interesting things.

  1. Lots of people really do say "eh" and "a boat" (about)
  2. It's really a lot colder that far North
  3. Vancouver is a beautiful city and has tons of great restaurants
  4. Green traffic lights blink for some reason
  5. The walk sign (little white light man) is different than the one in the states

I also met with a Canadian based company that makes staffing software for hospitals and they gave me some interesting information on healthcare staffing in Canada such as:

  • All hospital census is always at 100%. There are 0 vacancies. The theories as to why were everything from - there is a waiting list for care in Canada and no beds are ever empty to - there are too many, unnecessary for-profit healthcare delivery organizations in the states causing a consistent census gap, mismanagement and poor staffing.
  • All hospitals employees are unionized and the same organizations that run the educational centers for healthcare professionals negotiate on behalf of the unions.
  • All of the hospitals are not for profit and effectively owned by the government.
  • Due to all of this, there is little to no market for healthcare staffing agencies in Canada even though there is still a shortage of healthcare professionals.
  • When polled, consistently, the people of Canada approve of their healthcare system by 80+%
  • The company I met with also makes payroll systems for countries all over the world and claimed that 1) the U.S. has the most complicated tax laws over any other country and that 2) no other country they work with has local or regional taxes.

This information is anecdotal, as it came from a handful of people. However, I'm interested in learning more about it so I'll be doing more research on it. If anyone else has information on any of this please let me know.



Dec 1, 2009 7:34:18 AM | Government, Economy & Healthcare Staffing, Healthcare Reform & Healthcare Staffing, Healthcare Staffing Process

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Jason Lander

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