MQIISP Policy Seminar Series: Session 6 - Health Care: Systemic Issues and Solutions

This was the sixth online policy seminar in the Challenges and Opportunities for Social Policy in the Coming Decade series. The policy seminars were organized in part by policy sector, focusing on the tools available in different sectors; however, each panel considered how policies interconnect, and how vulnerable groups intersect to create concentrations of advantage and disadvantage.   

Canada’s healthcare system urgently requires renewal. Our hospital-centric system drives too much care into hospitals at the front end (over-use of emergency departments due to lack of accessible primary care) and at the back end (extended lengths of hospital stays due to inadequate long-term care provision). At the same time a long-standing emphasis on running hospitals as lean as possible has resulted in levels of health human resources well below the norm for peer nations. In sum, hospitals lack surge capacity and there is inadequate “continuum of care” across major healthcare sub-sectors - primary care, hospitals, home care and long-term care facilities. What should be our priorities for the next five years? How can information technology and virtual care be better exploited? Canada has been an international laggard; change will require overcoming multiple barriers to the linkage of information systems.   

For more information about this series and The Next Wave: Challenges & Opportunities for Social Policy Conference, please visit: https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/munk-school-queens-international-institute-social-policy