Grant: Foundation Grant

The Canadian population is aging and chronic diseases are becoming more common, leading to increasing health care costs and demand for system-wide change to improve sustainability. In a recent international study of 11 peer countries, Canada's health care system ranked 10th. The major reasons for this poor performance include: (1) Canada's health care system funds hospitals and physicians, and hence is not optimally constructed to care for people with chronic diseases whose care accounts for more than two-thirds of current Canadian health care expenditures; (2) Canada's physician fee-for-service model rewards high-volume care by a single physician, which is not the ideal model for care for people with chronic diseases where multidisciplinary team-based care has a central role; and (3) Many Canadians with drug insurance continue to experience financial barriers to drug access due to the structure of cost-sharing between the patient and the health care system. I am a physician who links clinical medicine with research and health policy. I hold a Research Chair in Health Economics and my research program informs health care sustainability across a variety of areas such as measuring the impact of new treatments or strategies on patient outcomes and health care costs. My research vision is that health care policy (relevant to physician care and publicly funded drug formularies) will use best quality evidence to favorably impact sustainability of publicly funded health care. The proposed research will lead to the development of new evidence-based health policies regarding optimal physician payment models and drug formulary cost-sharing structures. Research deliverables will empower government decision-making to improve health system sustainability, quality of care, equitable access and efficiency. My work has already led directly to changes in health policy in Canada.