Modern health systems, like Canada’s, face similar pressures. Populations are aging, government revenues are dwindling, and the scope for new services is increasing as new technologies develop. However, each country is responding to these pressures in unique ways. Arguably, Canadians pay too...

The adoption of new health technologies brings potential improvements to quality of life as well as new costs for provincial healthcare systems. An appropriate evidence-based framework for adoption decisions therefore can go a long way to improving value for money in our health systems. While...

Physician compensation accounts for about one-fifth of all Canadian healthcare spending. But physicians’ decisions, particularly those made by primary care doctors, are the conduit for the majority of the system’s costs. The incentives physicians have to promote efficiency, therefore, affect...

For many seniors, their greatest health concern is the ongoing care that many of them will need as their ability to cope with the routine tasks of daily life declines. Due to various chronic health problems or just old age, supportive services for seniors – often referred to as continuing care...

Roughly 30 percent of all Canadian healthcare is privately paid for, about the same proportion as the average for the 34 industrialized countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). However, two things make Canada’s public-private mix unique....

Canadian specialist doctors are paid mainly through fee-for-service for the procedures they perform. Nationwide, more than 80 percent of surgical specialists’ income comes from fee-for-service payments that are negotiated collectively with provincial health ministries. Surgical specialists...

Physician compensation accounts for about one-fifth of all Canadian healthcare spending. But physicians’ decisions, particularly those made by primary care doctors, are the conduit for the majority of the system’s costs. The incentives physicians have to promote efficiency, therefore, affect...

With annual spending of about $4.5 billion dollars in 2010, Canada’s largest drug plan – the Ontario Drug Program (ODB) – will become harder to afford as the babyboomers age and workforce growth slows. A business-as-usual approach to funding the plan, which provides publicly funded drug...

Roughly 30 percent of all Canadian healthcare is privately paid for, about the same proportion as the average for the 34 industrialized countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). However, two things make Canada’s public-private mix unique....