Drug Reform and Family Caregivers
November 8, 2011
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Bill Smith is Managing Director of NSI’s Healthcare practice group. Marc Kealey is Chief Advocate, Kealey & Associates Inc. They say why American and Canadian family caregivers and their families should be interested in drug reform. They explain what’s meant by ‘generic’ and ‘brand-name’ drugs and discuss their differences in costs and medically. They explain how drug plans work in the US and Canada, identify any important gaps, and say what they think needs doing to close the gaps. They discuss planners and politicians’ concerns about ever-rising costs of drugs and drug plans. They say how the supply of generics can be increased and their costs lowered across North America. They highlight the drug reforms they both would like to see to protect drug plans so these continue to support people who rely on them and so they expand to meet future needs. And they say what messages they have for healthcare planners and cost-concerned politicians in Canada and the US.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
