Other Notables

Peter Coyte Appointed Scientific Chair of the 6th International Conference on the Scientific Basis of Health Services

The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) recently announced that its selection committee approved the Canadian College of Health Service Executives as the host and HPME's Professor Peter Coyte as the Scientific Chair of the 6 th International Conference on the Scientific Basis of Health Services . The conference will be held in Montreal in September 2005. This biennial conference series, that began 10 years ago in the United Kingdom , has since been hosted by the Netherlands , Canada , Australia and the US . The 5th conference was held in Washington DC , hosted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and AcademyHealth.

The series has provided an international forum for the exchange of research and experience on the use of health services research to improve access to and the quality of healthcare systems. Its focus is on the process of promoting the use of scientific evidence for clinical practice, health services management and health policy. Rather than examining the specific research methods or the content of different areas of scientific evidence, the objective of the conference series is to improve its dissemination, synthesis, translation and uptake at different levels of decision-making. Numerous international research societies, governments, international agencies and private sector companies have supported the series as complementary to their efforts.

Deber Brings Clarity to Private versus Public Healthcare In Election Debates

In an interview with Anthony Germain on CBC Radio’s The House (May 15, 2004), Dr. Raisa Deber (Professor in HPME ) was asked to comment on the positions on healthcare taken by party leaders running in the Federal election. Dr. Deber noted that there is a great deal of confusion in the public versus private healthcare debate. Speakers do not usually distinguish between the financing of healthcare and its delivery. In Canada, 70% of health costs are currently publicly financed, including most physician and hospital costs, but not pharmaceuticals, dentistry, physiotherapy, and home care. One aspect of the public/private debate is therefore about deciding what types of care are medically essential and should be publicly funded. In this respect, Deber observed, Canada actually funds a lower percentage of services than many other countries. Healthcare is already delivered privately in Canada, through a combination of not-for-profit hospitals and for-profit physicians (chiropractors, dentists, physiotherapists, etc.). The second aspect of the public/private debate is therefore about the introduction of greater competition among providers and the private delivery of care by investor corporations with a fiduciary responsibility to bring a return on investment to shareholders. According to Deber, evidence suggests that attempting to shift costs from the public purse onto investor-owned corporations has a variety of negative effects on the delivery of healthcare, including higher overall costs. While Dr. Deber did not comment specifically on the positions of leadership candidates Martin, Harper and Layton, she provided listeners with a clear picture of the key issues in the public/private debate and the direction in which danger may lie.

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