By the Numbers: Healthcare Index 2017, Begging for Action

The holidays are often a time when I get to catch up on reading, tackle the cool pile of articles and links I have sent to myself over the last few months, and generally step back from the day to day and look at the larger picture from a few different angles. As I was reading everything from spy novels to piles of great health and healthcare articles, and good brain food books (don't miss "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande, "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi) different numbers about healthcare, some new and some not so new, really struck me as measures that we need to move the needle on.

So as step one in my actions to move the needle - here's my 2017 index of the numbers "crying for action". This isn't a comprehensive index meant to cover all things, nor is it scientific and statistically perfect in some cases! But these are metrics that hit home for me as drives to action. Source notes included below.

Some of these numbers drive me to personal actions like: contributing and donating to improve conditions including healthcare access in countries where social determinants of health pale in comparison to staying alive and inspire me to encourage everyone in my family to have clear end of life discussions and medical representation agreements and clarity about what they want in the last 90 days. Some are more systemic such as truly integrated electronic health records that are accessible by patients, and better curation, guidance, consolidation and regulation of #mHealth apps, or the Don Quixote mission to eliminate the thousands of fax machines that seem to be central and sacred to many parts of Canadian healthcare.

2017 GHI (Gilberg Healthcare Index)

Numbers That Call for Action

$26 Billion          Est value of the #mHealth app market by the end of 2017 (Note 1)

400 Million         Est # of humans on the globe w/out access to healthcare (Note 2)

47 Million           Est # of in person medical appointments that could have been avoided in a single year in Canada with the right access to electronic health information by citizens and providers and expanded use of telehealth (Note 3)

36.3 Million        Est population of Canada at Q2 2016 (Note 4)

4.3 Million          Est # of Canadians w/out a dedicated primary care physician (Note 5)

210,000            Est # of #mHealth apps available by Dec 2017 (Note 6)

165,000 The # of #mHealth apps available now in app stores (Note 6)

$100,000            Est savings ($CDN) per person per year from delaying 24 hr residential care for the frail & elderly populations (Note 7)

40,000                 Est # of fax machines used in CDN healthcare (Note 8)

90%                   Est % of Canadians who think they have an integrated longitudinal health record because their physician and the hospital both have computers (Note 11)

75%                     Proportion of lifetime healthcare spend per person that takes place in the last 90 days of life (multiple sources – averaged here)

70                    Est % of physicians in Canada using an electronic medical record (Note 12)

54                   Est % of Canadians who aren’t concerned about having a dedicated primary care physician provided they have access to primary care (walk in clinic, nurse practitioners, etc) (Note 5)

44                    Percentage of WHO member states who have less than one physician per 1000 population (Note 9) Canada has 2/1000 by contrast, Sierra Leone has 0.022/1000, Zimbabwe has 0.08/1000, Norway has 4.3/1000, Australia and France are at 3.2/1000, Qatar tops the list at 7.7/1000

36                         Number of #mHealth apps out of 165,000 generating 50% of the total #mHealth downloads (Note 10)

Notes on Sources:

1  mHealth App Developer study 2015

2 World Health Organization, 2015 study

3 Conference Board of Canada, as quoted in Canada Health Infoway Telehealth Review 2015

4 StatsCan

5 StatsCan, as reported and extrapolated by Andre Picard in the Globe and Mail 2012

6 mHealth App Developer Economics Survey 2015

7 extrapolated from long term care data (Canada and US)

 8 my own horrified not exactly scientific extrapolation – which required me to explain to my 20 year old step daughter what a fax machine was

9 WHO, Global Health Observatory Data, Healthcare Workforce Density

10 IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, 2015, Patient Adoption of mHealth

11 My unscientific extrapolation based on a thousand informal interviews at social events once people find out what I do for a living

12 Canada Health Infoway EMR statistics