H E A L T H C A R E   P O L I C Y

Canadians often tell themselves that they enjoy “the best healthcare system in the world.” Unfortunately, the evidence doesn’t support these claims. Despite very high per-capita spending levels, Canada’s healthcare system underperforms in comparison to a number of European countries, including the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Sweden. In many European countries, wait times for healthcare services are much shorter than in Canada. AIMS research focuses on identifying and measuring the performance gaps between Canada and some of its peer nations and on identifying policy strategies and global best practices that can help reduce wait times and improve patient care in Canada.

AIMS research in the healthcare sector also focuses on the development of policy ideas that can help strengthen the role of consumers themselves within the healthcare system. Our work examines global practices and policy ideas that provide patients with more access to information about their own health status and treatment options, enabling them to be active, leading participants in their own team of health care providers.

POLICY PAPERS & OP-ED COMMENTARIES

 

Improving Canadian Health Care

Improving Canadian Health Care takes a serious look at the alternative mechanisms available to introduce new money into the health care system in Canada. By combining a flat deductible and an MSA (medical savings account) targeted at low income individuals for example you can cut medicare costs, improve accountability, build ...
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/ / Healthcare, Policy Papers

Medicare, the Medical Brain Drain and Human Resource Shortages in Health Care

Medicare, the Medical Brain Drain and Human Resource Shortages in Health Care demonstrates how the limitations of public spending are making it obvious that a centrally planned medical system is unable to provide the same opportunities and rewards for doctors and nurses as a more market-oriented system. As Canadian medical professionals ...
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/ / Healthcare, Policy Papers

The Benefits of Allowing Business Back Into Canadian Health Care

The Benefits of Allowing Business Back Into Canadian Health Care provides a review of the direction of health policy reforms in the rest of the world that indicates that Canadians are not alone in preferring balanced approaches to health policy reform. The consensus that is emerging internationally is primarily concerned ...
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/ / Healthcare, Policy Papers

Public Health, State Secret

This is AIMS’ most recent report on the state of Canada’s health care system. The study demonstrates that politicians and senior health officials simply don’t know where or why medicare is failing because they still lack the proper tools to evaluate the quality or timeliness of the care Canadians receive ...
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/ / Healthcare, Policy Papers

Operating in the Dark

This study garnered considerable attention when it was published in November 1999 for its argument that the health care system could not be properly managed because managers and policymakers did not have access to vital information about the system’s performance. The paper also argued that if Canadians wanted to preserve ...
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/ / Healthcare, Policy Papers
MEDIA MENTIONS

 

Good governance first step toward curing system ills

No progress in health care, including technological advancement, will ever happen until we fix the governance of our health care system. I was chair of the governance sub-committee of the ...
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Medicare malaise: a remedy

Health care in Canada is not the same for everyone. Access to care differs based on education and socioeconomic status, for simple problems like acne, for diagnostic and preventive medical ...
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Health plan slammed

THE CANADIAN ideal of equal health care available across the country will be dead under the Harper government’s new funding plan, says Premier Darrell Dexter. "I think it’s absolutely clear ...
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Nova Scotia health care system weakest link

Remember the television game show where the intemperate, short-haired female host dismissed contestants with the phrase, "You ARE the weakest link"? I thought of that program reading Tuesday’s headline that ...
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