Office of the Chair

Changes in HPME

Move Behind Us, A New Academic Year Ahead

The dust is beginning to settle as HPME faculty and staff adjust to their new office space at 155 College Street .  The expanded meeting space, classrooms, student workspace, and bright airy corridors have been met with enthusiasm by all.  Best of all, all faculty associated with HPME are now located in the same building, on the same floor, which will facilitate face-to-face collaboration and a sense of cohesion among faculty and students.

Not without its challenges, the move was accomplished with little disruption to students beginning their term.

This year we are very pleased to welcome 33 professional Master's students, 42 research-based Master's students and 8 PhD students, and now have 253 students enrolled in our graduate programs.

New HPME Website Launched

Along with new physical space, HPME has also revamped its cyberspace. Launched on July 29, 2005, the new website ( www.hpme.utoronto.ca ) has a dynamic new look and feel. The new site has not only a more colourful and crisp design, but a much improved navigational system, making it easier for visitors to find the information they need. New content areas have been added, including About HPME and Prospective Students, and the Research section has been updated and expanded, including new sections on Knowledge Transfer and affiliated Research Units / Programs.

The redesigned site highlights the department's role and contributions as a leading source of innovative thinking, research and teaching in health policy, management and evaluation. It will serve an important communication and marketing tool for the department and a key point of contact for potential students, donors, funders, decision-makers and the wider community, locally, nationally and internationally.

HPME Year-End Celebration

Mark your calendar now for the HPME Year-End Celebration:

Thursday, December 8, 2005 from 5:30 to 8:30pm

More details will be provided in the next issue of Newsbytes and on the HPME website.

Health System Change: Looking Forward, Looking Back

Over the past decade in Canada, health care organizations and providers have been subject to relentless pressures to bring about change. Managing costs, improving care and access to care, and integrating services between home, community, hospitals and long-term care continue to top the agenda for health care reform. As seen below, HPME faculty and alumni continue to play a significant role in the unfolding of these storylines.

Sinclair, Rochon, Leatt Tell the Story of the OHSRC

In their new book, Duncan Sinclair, Mark Rochon and Peggy Leatt provide an inside look at the experience of the Ontario Health Services Restructuring Commission from 1996 to 2000. Riding the Third Rail: The Story of Ontario's Health Services Restructuring Commission, 1996-2000 reflects on how the Commission went about eliminating empty hospital beds, transferring care to the home and community, and providing the government with advice on the development of a genuine health care system.

Former Chair of the department of HPME (1987-1998), Dr. Peggy Leatt was the CEO of the Commission from 1998-2000. She is currently the Chair of Health Policy and Administration in the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Mark Rochon, Adjunct Faculty in HPME, served as CEO from 1996-1998. He is currently the President and CEO of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.

While the authors' note that it is too soon to comment on the full effects of the Commission's work, a new wave of system-oriented thinking has taken hold in Ontario with the development of Local Health Integration Networks.

HPME Faculty, Alumni Lead LHINs

Fourteen Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) are in the process of being created in Ontario, to plan, integrate, coordinate and fund health care within specific geographic regions. Of these, four will carry out their mandate under the leadership of HPME alumni and faculty. The Toronto Central LHIN and Waterloo Wellington LHIN will be lead by HPME alumni, Barry Monaghan and Sandra Hanmer , respectively. Adjunct faculty, Mimi Lowi-Young will head the Central West LHIN while Hy Eliasoph heads up the Central LHIN . For latest developments in the formation of regional networks, see the LHIN Bulletins on the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care website.

Adalsteinn Brown and Colleen Flood Respond to Chaouilli v. Quebec

While LHINs are big news on the provincial front, the Chaoulli v. Quebec Supreme Court ruling has sent tremors through the health services community across the nation. The ruling found Quebec laws prohibiting the sale of private health insurance unconstitutional and a violation of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedom. Assistant Professor Adalsteinn Brown (HPME) and Associate Professor Colleen Flood (Faculty of Law and HPME) have each considered the implications of the Chaouilli v. Quebec ruling. In an article in Law and Governance, Neil Seeman and Adalsteinn Brown note that wait-times research will take on heightened legal significance if established benchmarks to back up legal claims that wait times are acceptable or unacceptable.

Based on papers presented in a conference on the Chaouilli decision at the University of Toronto in September 2005, Colleen Flood and colleagues have published a book, Access to Care, Access to Justice: The Legal Debate Over Private Health Insurance in Canada. This collection explores the role that courts may begin to play in health care and how these changes may affect Canadians. Flood has been in the major media (Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and National Post) over the summer with her outspoken criticism of the Supreme Court's decision and its implications for the privatization of health care.

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