Provincial Ministries of Health should be dramatically downsized and a broad cross-section of knowledgeable providers and citizens used to establish appropriate goals, standards and evaluation criteria. At present, the public does not understand the need to change or the threat to Medicare of maintaining the status quo. The urgency to move from fragmentation to integration is critical. Fragmented funding and service delivery costs the Canadian healthcare system billions of dollars each year in unnecessary services, duplication and waste. These are scarce taxpayer dollars that urgently need to be better deployed.
Good information is critical to improving system performance.
However, we are cautious about projects that purport to solve all system information needs. We prefer a more evolutionary approach that continues to adapt to change and strongly believe that the lack of perfect data and information systems should not and need not be a barrier to needed reforms. We believe strongly that there can be incremental development of information systems to support integrated delivery. There can also be incremental development and sharing of knowledge and skills as Integrated Health Systems are implemented. Governance issues will also need to be worked through, but again, the exact composition of boards and governance structures should not delay reform and should be allowed to evolve.