Poll results show public support for principles to inform new health accord
With a goal of ensuring Canadians will have the best health and the best health care in the world by 2025, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) are spearheading a drive to transform health care for the better when the current health accord expires in 2014.
Armed with the results of a new Canada-wide public opinion poll that shows overwhelming support for the key aspects of a set of jointly agreed principles as the basis for a new health accord, the two organizations are calling for a high-quality health care system that is universal, equitable, sustainable and truly centred on the needs of patients.
CMA president John Haggie says while the 2004 Health Accord resolved the issue of stable and predictable funding; the system now needs a major overhaul.
“Anything you do now without a systematic transformational approach will just be tinkering,” says Dr. Haggie. “The system evolved from a different era with a different paradigm of health care focused mainly on acute care. But now 80 per cent of the disease burden in Canada is chronic disease management and the system of acute care management, does not fit any longer.”
CNA president Judith Shamian agrees.
“The 2004 health accord made some progress on some of the issues, but we are nowhere near achieving the transformation of health care in Canada that we need to make sure that Canadians are healthier tomorrow than they are today,” says Dr. Shamian.
Right now, she says, Canada is heading in the wrong direction; health care outcomes are worse in 2011 than they were 20 years ago compared to some other countries. For example, Dr. Shamian points out that Canada ranked 10th among OECD countries for infant mortality in 1982. In 2008, the country was ranked 27th out of 34 OECD member states.
Former Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services Philippe Couillard says Canada needs to create an environment that better supports people and organizations operating in the health care sector to provide better service, safety, quality, access and patient experience.
“I believe there is a political will to make these changes; they are not revolutionary, they are patient-centred and aimed at bringing quality back into the system,”
says Dr. Couillard.
Dr. Haggie believes that how Canada’s health care dollars are spent is more important than the size of the budget. He points out that Canada spends close to $200 billion a year on health care, which puts the country’s health care spending fifth among OECD countries as a percentage of GDP. However, Canada ranks only 27th in the OECD when it comes to the efficient use of its health care budget.
“That’s a huge gap, so it may not be a question of spending more, but just not letting costs rise by gaining efficiencies and doing things better, getting better value by spending health care money closer to the patient and focusing on patient-centred care,” he says.
The CMA-CNA principles call for an equitable and accountable patient-centred health care system focused on quality and incorporating health promotion and illness prevention.
For Dr. Shamian, that means a system that measures outcomes rather than outputs and one that brings teams of practitioners together to meet the needs of patients. It also means looking beyond just the health care system to ensure a healthy population.
“We need to see health care as part of a larger system,” she says. “We can have the best health care in the world, but if we don’t deal with the challenges that lead to health issues such as homelessness and poverty, we will not achieve the outcomes we are looking for.”
Dr. Haggie says the latest poll results underscore support for health care transformation.
