The editors at Open Medicine would like to announce publication of the article "Better access to outpatient magnetic resonance imaging in Ontario – But for whom?" by You et al.

"The access gap to MRI screening between wealthy and poor Ontarians has widened, despite an injection of provincial funding that succeeded in doubling the number of scans performed yearly, report Dr. John You, a research at Toronto’s Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). In 2004, the province launched its Wait Time Strategy, and boosted funding for outpatient MRI services. According to the study, published today in the Canadian medical journal Open Medicine, this led to a 112 percent increase in the volume of MRI scans, substantially increasing access. But Dr. You wanted to understand whether that increase impacted everyone in the province equally, whether they lived in the poorest neighbourhoods or the richest. As of 2002, when the study began, data showed that patients living in the richest one-fifth of the province’s neighbourhoods were 25 percent more likely to receive MRIs. Dr. You and colleagues, including Dr. Andreas Laupacis from ICES, found that by the end of the study term, in 2007, that disparity had widened to 38 percent."