Sinha Samir K
Mount Sinai and the University Health Network Hospitals.
Healthc Pap. 2011;11(1):46-51; discussion 86-91. doi: 10.12927/hcpap.2011.22252.
Canada's aging population poses a significant challenge for the existing healthcare system. While individuals 65 and older accounted for 13.7% of the population in 2005, they accounted for 60% of all acute care service spending. This paper further illustrates how the heterogeneity of the older population and its impact on patterns of healthcare use demonstrate the failings of our current care systems. Our outdated acute care models frequently disadvantage the system's highest users, who are often characterized by factors such as poly-morbidity, functional impairment and social frailty. Understanding how implementing innovative models that challenge deeply ingrained ways of providing care has proven to be a significant challenge, this paper highlights one hospital's mission to transform current traditional paradigms of care by developing and implementing an elder-friendly hospital integrated service delivery model. This hospital aims to demonstrate wide-ranging benefits of this model that can contribute toward optimizing the outcomes of hospitalization for older adults and the system as a whole. The establishment of a national agency that could support the development of a national aging strategy to promote best practice dissemination and implementation could also ensure that the significant health, social and economic benefits that better care models can realize could be more easily achieved.
加拿大人口老龄化给现有的医疗保健系统带来了重大挑战。2005年，65岁及以上的人群占总人口的13.7%，但他们却占了所有急性护理服务支出的60%。本文进一步说明，老年人群的异质性及其对医疗保健使用模式的影响如何揭示了我们当前医疗系统的缺陷。我们过时的急性护理模式常常使该系统中使用频率最高的人群处于不利地位，这些人群往往具有多种疾病、功能障碍和社会脆弱性等特征。鉴于理解如何实施挑战根深蒂固的护理方式的创新模式已被证明是一项重大挑战，本文重点介绍了一家医院的使命，即通过开发和实施一种关爱老年人的医院综合服务提供模式来转变当前传统的护理模式。这家医院旨在展示该模式的广泛益处，这些益处有助于优化老年人住院治疗的结果以及整个系统的效果。设立一个能够支持制定国家老龄化战略以促进最佳实践传播和实施的国家机构，也可以确保更优质护理模式所能实现的重大健康、社会和经济效益能够更容易地达成。
