Modernizing the Canadian Health Care Act

Using health outcomes to drive public policy and improve the Canadian health care system.

The Canadian Health Act (CHA) is the piece of federal legislation which provides the foundation that Canadian health care systems are built on. The Act focuses on 5 key areas, universality, comprehensiveness, public administration, portability, and accessibility (“Canadian Health Care: Canada Health Act,” n.d.). None of these key areas of focus include measuring outcomes. By not measuring, analyzing and reporting on outcomes, Canada has limited ability to determine the quality of care received by Canadians, and the value received for dollars spent. In 2018, Canada spent over $250 billion, equating to more than $6,000 per person on health care (“Health spending | CIHI,” n.d.). After spending a large portion of tax dollars on health care, without outcome data, Canadians are unable to determine if they are getting value for the dollars spent.

To make relevant data accessible, provincial and federal governments should expand on current data sets by adding outcome measures that are useful to primary care providers, patients, and administrators. Types of health outcome data that could be considered are disease occurrence and response to treatment, preventable disease death rate and disease specific outcome measures such as the reduction in cholesterol levels after a change in patient diets. Once collected, analyzed and shared, outcome data can be used to focus public policy on improving outcomes and increasing value in health care (Veillard, Fekri, Dhalla, & Klazinga, n.d.).

Effective policies built on health outcome data can be used in knowledge transfers among the provinces to share achievements and allow for a wider scope of change. By including the measurement and reporting of health data outcomes in the CHA, Canadians will be better equipped to determine where the value is found in their health care spending (Veillard et al., n.d.).

References

Canadian Health Care; Canada Health Act (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2019, from

http://www.canadian-healthcare.org/page2.html

Description of the Canadian Health Care Act

Health spending. (2019, March 01). Retrieved May 20, 2019, from

https://www.cihi.ca/en/health-spending

Amount of health care spending in Canada in 2018.

Veillard, J., Dhalla, I., Fekri, O., & Klazinga, N. (2015). Measuring Outcomes in the Canadian Health Sector: Driving Better Value from Healthcare. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2689797

Commentary on the collection of health outcome data.

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