Program Director's Report
A New Academic Year
2004-2005 promises to be another exciting and challenging academic year. We are very pleased to welcome 36 professional Master's students, 39 research-based Master's students and 10 PhD students, and now have 273 students enrolled in our graduate programs. HPME is home to a diverse group of students and faculty with a shared commitment to providing the best health care possible for Canadians. The department has 281 faculty, many cross-appointed from other departments and affiliated with teaching hospitals or other health care organizations.
This year we welcome Dr. Walter Wodchis, new full-time Assistant Professor to HPME. Dr. Wodchis has just completed a one-year post-doctoral fellowship with the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute examining discharge outcomes of short-term stays in complex continuing care organizations. His most recent publication, "Physical rehabilitation following Medicare prospective payment for skilled nursing facilities", will appear in the October Issue of Health Services Research.
We would also like to congratulate HPME's Dr. Paul Williams on his promotion to Professor in July. HPME faculty continue to play a key role in Canadian health policy. In September, Professor Raisa Deber attended the Federal Government's First Ministers meeting in Ottawa while Assistant Professor Adalsteinn Brown was appointed to the provincial leadership team for the Ontario Health Transformation Plan.
Dr. Ross Baker continues to receive unprecedented attention for his research on patient safety. Most recently, he presented on the challenges and opportunities in implementing a patient safety agenda at the September 13, 2004 Breakfast with the Chiefs. The complete presentation is available on-line. Dr. Baker will present at the Systems and Processes to Reduce Adverse Events in Canadian Health Care Conference to be held in Toronto on November 1 and 2, 2004. In August, an on-line article by Ross Baker and Peter Norton, Making Patients Safer! Reducing Error in Canadian Healthcare (Healthcare Papers Vol 2, No 1, 2001), ranked number one of the top eight articles downloaded over the past two years on the Longwoods website.
Faculty In the News
Over the summer of 2004, the following HPME faculty received widespread media attention for their contributions to Canadian health care debates:
Ross Baker (Canadian Press) June 10, 2004 : Medical errors clog hospital
beds
Ross Baker (London Free Press) June 21, 2004: Health care is sick, nurses
insist
Raisa Deber (Canadian Press) June 24, 2004: Canada Health Act sacred on
election trail
Raisa Deber (Globe and Mail) July 1, 2004: Pettigrew plays down 'musings'
by Klein
Raisa Deber (Toronto Star) July 26, 2004 : We have the right diagnosis,
now it's time to treat the system
Chaim Bell and Donald Redelmeier (CBC Health and Science News) July 24, 2004: Waits
for emergency room tests longest on weekends
Peter Coyte (Canadian Press) July 30, 2004: Ontario needs health user
fees: report
Raisa Deber (Canadian Press) August 4, 2004: Health care experts say premiers'
demands are unrealistic, unlikely to be met
Peter Coyte (Canadian Press) August 4, 2004: Private sector can help offset
health costs
Ross Baker (Toronto Star) August 7, 2004: Enormous scope for cost reduction
Peter Coyte and student Vivian Leong (Toronto Star) August 26, 2004: Long-term
care: a success story
Raisa Deber (Maclean's) September 1, 2004: Writing a new Rx
Raisa Deber (CBC Radio) September 11, 2004: First ministers meeting -
healthcare
Adalsteinn Brown (Guelph Mercury) September 11, 2004: Province seeks results
on wait times
Louise Lemieux-Charles (CBC Ottawa) September 15, 2004: What role should
politics play in health care reform?
Raisa Deber (CBC Radio) September 18, 2004: First Ministers meeting
New HPME Publications on Healthcare Restructuring and Reform
A number of HPME faculty have had their work on health care restructuring and reform profiled in healthcare journals this past summer. The perspectives they put forward are provocative, relevant, insightful and practical for healthcare researcher, policymaker and decision-maker audiences. These papers coincide with the announcement by George Smitherman that the province of Ontario will be moving towards the integration of care across the continuum through the creation of Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs). The formation of these geographically bounded networks will facilitate the decentralization of health care planning, coordination and funding while maintaining local accountability for governance within health care delivery organizations.
Colleen Flood and Duncan Sinclair's commentary, Devolution – A Solution for Ontario. Could the Lone Wolf Lead the Pack? (Healthcare Papers Vol 5, No 1, 2004) identifies a window of opportunity for devolution in the new Ontario liberal government. However, they caution that devolution alone will not lead to increased accountability; there must be clarification of the roles of provincial and federal governments and incentives for improving health care outcomes rather than the processes of delivery.
In their commentary, Reconstructing Cancer Services in Ontario (Healthcare Papers Vol 5, No 1, 2004), Terry Sullivan, Mark Dobrow, Leslee Thompson and Alan Hudson consider how, in the absence of a regional model of health service delivery, cancer organizations in Ontario have come together to regionalize the management of disease.
Vivek Goel reviews and summarizes four major reports recommending the development of a new and improved infrastructure for public health in the feature article, What Do We Do With the SARS Reports? (Healthcare Quarterly Vol 7 No 3, 2004). Dr. Goel urges action on the recommendations in these reports. However, he reminds readers that this action must go beyond the formation of new public health agencies. Real change in the public health system requires greater integration across the health care system, primary care reform and investment in human resources and health informatics.