Unleashing Innovation: Excellent Healthcare for Canada Report of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation
Report of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation
Foreword
The Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation has been learning and deliberating more or less non-stop since members received their mandate from the Honourable Rona Ambrose in June 2014. We have had an extraordinary experience.
Panel members have read scores of submissions and commissioned research reports, dug through mountains of publications, crisscrossed Canada for consultations with hundreds of our fellow citizens, and conversed with many federal, provincial and territorial leaders, as well as international experts who work in the broad health arena.
We came at this task from different disciplines, sectors, and regions. Collectively, including the late Cy Frank, we can claim well over 150 years of engagement with Canadian healthcare systems, along with substantial expertise in public policy and governance. However, preparing this report was a serious challenge, simply because so many issues might reasonably be included under the broad rubric of healthcare innovation.
In this regard, it seems worth highlighting and explaining a few things that the Panel did and did not do.
Our terms of reference specified that our recommendations should fall within the Canada Health Act – and they do.
Our terms of reference further specified that our recommendations should respect the division of powers in the Canadian Constitution, and therefore focus on the federal government. They do so. Our recommendations are directed to the Government of Canada and in many instances to Health Canada in particular.
At the same time, it would be foolish – indeed, impossible – to write a report on innovation in healthcare without making general observations about Canadian healthcare systems and what would make those systems better. The observations in the report reflect our estimation of best practices internationally. They also repeatedly align with what has been recommended in the past by other commissions and panels advising, variously, the federal, provincial and territorial governments.
In that respect, throughout this report the terms “Canadian healthcare systems” or “Canada’s healthcare systems” are used inclusively, i.e., not just for the provinces and territories, but also for the federal government in its role as a provider of care to specific populations. Regarding federal healthcare, we did not comment specifically on active military personnel and veterans, or prisoners in federal penitentiaries. However, we do comment on the federal role in First Nations and Inuit health services.
In contrast, we made a commitment to provincial and territorial health ministers that the Panel would praise specifically while criticizing generically. We kept our word. This approach reflects not just attention to political sensitivities, but two obvious facts and a fundamental belief. The facts are that healthcare reform in Canada has proven extraordinarily difficult for every jurisdiction, with the result that, despite varied circumstances and unique strengths, Canada’s healthcare systems today share many weaknesses and challenges. The belief is one that shaped the Panel’s key recommendations: all Canadian governments – and all Canadians – would benefit from a stronger culture of inter-jurisdictional collaboration in healthcare.
To that end, many of our recommendations anticipate that some or all provincial and territorial governments may choose to begin new collaborative initiatives with each other and the federal government. In this regard, however, the language is precise. The report recommends priorities for federal support and action, and delineates a new incentive structure that clearly differs from standard transfer payments or past health accords. Each provincial and territorial government accordingly has a choice of working together with the federal government in the interests of their residents on specific projects – or going its own way.
Readers may notice further consistencies in wording. “Canadian governments” refers to all 14 federal, provincial and territorial administrations. The federal administration is referred to as “the federal government,” or “the Government of Canada.” General references to “Canada” and “Canadians” are national, not federal; the accompanying pronouns are “we” (and “our”), except in this Foreword. Otherwise, we have resorted, with a collective grimace, to self-reference as “the Panel” (“Panel’s” or “its”) and “Panel members” (“their”) throughout the report.
As noted above, we should also acknowledge things we did not do.
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