Commentary: Pricing Cataract (and Other Straightforward) Surgeries - A Policy Perspective to Build Capacity, Value and Innovation.

Aligning with Crump and colleagues' (2024) conclusions on cataract surgery, this article champions a level playing field for expanding surgical capacities for straightforward surgeries. It is agnostic toward for-profit or not-for-profit models. It argues for experimenting with new ambulatory facilities to meet urgent needs, emphasizing Ontario's successful two-decade experience with models such as the Kensington Eye Institute. The discussion advances a three-tiered pricing framework, advocating for transparent, structured pricing to reduce wait times and improve public health outcomes. This approach seeks to balance annual commitments, quarterly adjustments and spot market needs, promoting innovation, cost-efficiency and quality care.

Developing an effective IM/IT strategy.

Healthcare organizations and systems around the world lag far behind banking, manufacturing, travel and other industries in their use of information management/information technology (IM/IT) to deliver high-quality products and services. Across Canada, healthcare organizations, as well as governments, understand that information and information technology are needed to deliver quality care and to sustain our publicly funded health system. However, insufficient funding, few experienced resources, lack of strong leadership and absence of clear business/clinical rationale have restricted innovation and advancement in the use of IM/IT to improve healthcare delivery and patient outcomes.

Harnessing collaborative technology to accelerate achievement of chronic disease management objectives for Canada.

Morgan and colleagues put forth a call to action for the transformation of the Canadian healthcare system through the adoption of a national chronic disease prevention and management (CDPM) strategy. They offer examples of best practices and national solutions including investment in clinical information technologies to help support improved care and outcomes. Although we acknowledge that the authors propose CDPM solutions that are headed in the right direction, more rapid deployment of solutions that harness the potential of advanced collaborative technologies is required. We provide examples of how technologies that exist today can help to accelerate the achievement of some key CDPM objectives.