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Showing posts from December, 2016

Ontario is aging as hospital funding falls behind

Funding for hospital services in 2015/16 was 25% more in the rest of Canada than in Ontario. S ome have tried to downplay this, arguing that economies of scale should allow Ontario to provide hospital care more cheaply.   Notably, however, the World Health Organization dismisses the notion that economies of scale are a significant factor in hospital costs: It is tempting to think that larger hospitals are more cost-effective than smaller ones because of the operation of economies of scale.   However, the evidence does not back up this belief.   While increasing hospital size can cut costs for some specific procedures, such economics are exhausted at a relatively small size. In any case, with a population dispersed over a large geographic area, Ontario has scores of small hospitals, despite its large population.   Moreover, in other provinces, small hospitals are managed by larger regional health organizations, while in Ontario they are not.   If there were economies of s