Why CHSRF is doing this work
Helping Canadians to maintain and improve their health and well-being, delivering good care when people need it, and protecting the health system for future generations are the primary goals of the federal, provincial and territorial ministries of health.
At the current time, policy-makers in Canada and around the world are facing healthcare costs that are growing faster than revenues. For governments facing tight fiscal environments for the foreseeable future, this raises many important questions including:
- How to ensure future health spending is appropriate and affordable?
- How to contain growth and promote greater efficiencies?
- How to respond to changing demographics and societal expectations of the healthcare system?
- How to make meaningful progress toward transformation to meet these challenges?
The approaching expiry of the “10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care” will focus renewed attention on questions of sustainability, accessibility, quality and responsiveness of the healthcare system to the needs and preferences of Canadian, as well as on the extent to which the system helps to promote the health of people in Canada and helps them from becoming ill in the first place. It also presents an opportunity to re-examine health policy in Canada, and set the strategic directions that will align available resources with changing demographics and expectations over the next 20 years or more.
CHSRF is responding to this opportunity by synthesizing best evidence about healthcare financing approaches and fostering dialogue among provincial, territorial, federal and regional stakeholders across Canada. Such dialogue is needed to better understand the financial challenges and opportunities policy-makers are facing in order to inform the development of credible, realistic options to address them.
At the same time, CHSRF is encouraging open and informed dialogue among policy-makers, researchers, healthcare providers and the public about system transformation. Part of this work will be to highlight pockets of innovation from different regions across the country and create opportunities for mutual learning and discussion. This will help to stimulate ideas and actions about how to transform the system. Integral to our work on transformation is our work in primary healthcare renewal and health systems planning for the aging population. Specifically, CHSRF is:
- Scoping, scanning and identifying key issues and knowledge gaps
- Summarizing current knowledge and research
- Commissioning applied policy research
- Organizing policy roundtables, exchanges and dialogues for policy leaders, researchers, healthcare providers and the general public