Health Services Restructuring in Canada: New Evidence and New Directions

Edited by Charles M. Beach, Richard P. Chaykowski, Sam Shortt, France St-Hilaire and Arthur Sweetman
Table of Contents | Introduction | Sample Chapter
December 2006

With the recent Chaoulli Supreme Court Decision and health care proposal by Quebec and Alberta, serious debate is occurring on how best to restructure the Canadian health care system to address concerns of access and wait-times, alternative health care delivery modes, and methods of funding. This volume offers a timely examination of these issues through reviewing a number of specific health care innovations and their impacts on service delivery in the health care system. The perspective of these studies is evidence-based policy making. The principal objective of the volume is to shift debate away from polemical positions, and to focus instead on using empirical tools of analysis to better understand what works and what doesn't.

Topics include: demand for private health insurance, impacts of regional health care delivery reforms, effectiveness of reference drug programs, alternative health human resource strategies, managed competition in home care, the economics of obesity, prioritization of health technologies, and planning for the next pandemic.

Contributors include: Lori Curtis (Waterloo), Michael Decter (Health Council of Canada), Margaret Denton (McMaster), Herb Emery (Calgary), Pierre-Gerlier Forest (Health Canada), Aidan Hollis (Calgary), Robert James (Aechidna Health Informatics, Inc.), Ana Johnson-Masotti (Queen's), Greg Marchildon (Regina), Lisa Powell (Illinois), Sebastian Schneeweiss (Harvard), Mark Stabile (Toronto), Kumanan Wilson (Toronto), and Dominika Wranik (Dalhousie).