Costs and benefits of virtual health care

Guest: Carine Abouseif, features editor at The Walrus Editor's note: This episode was recorded in November 2021, before the Omicron variant made in-person meeting a much higher risk. There are at this time no lockdowns but please note this conversation took place before case counts were rising exponentially. COVID-19 has brought a massive shift in the way we interact with our health care system. Since the lockdowns began, health care professionals and governments scrambled to create a telehealth system to minimize face-to-face interactions and avoid undue risk. In 2018, only 8 per cent of patients reported having had a virtual visit with their health care provider, according to the Canadian Medical Association (CMA). Now that number has shot up, but the rise of virtual care has also raised important questions about health care in this country, what exactly a doctor is paid to do, what quality care looks like and how do we help those who have the least access to it. Journalist Carine Abouseif explored all of this in an article for The Walrus and she joins "This Matters" to talk about the past, present and future of virtual health care in Canada.