Thank you, Madam.
I am Jean Bartkowiak and I am President and Chief Executive Officer of the SCO Health Service here in Ottawa. I am joined by Dr. Arthur Slutsky, Vice President of Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
We represent the Association of Canadian Academic Healthcare Organizations, which is the national voice of research hospitals, academic regional health authorities, and their research institutes in Canada.
You have received a copy of our written submission. For purposes of ACAHO's remarks, we shall speak to the three policy issues related to capacity-building and the 2004 health accord: health human resources; information and communications technology; and health research and innovation.
Wait times are the barometer by which Canadians perceive the performance of the health system. Their very existence is closely linked to a range of other policy issues. The health accord has contributed to a number of pockets of success where progress is being made when it comes to wait times and others where more work is required. This has been noted in the association's two reports on wait times, called Wait Watchers and Wait Watchers II, which identify a number of strategies to improve patient flow-through in the system.
That said, there are other areas where direct net investments are needed. One critical area is the training, recruitment, and retention of health providers. The lack of available family physicians, specialists, nurses, or lab technicians has a direct impact on the availability of health services. Limited operating revenues for teaching hospitals or regional health authorities can also impact on the number of surgical suites, as can restricted capital budgets limit the number of diagnostic and therapeutic equipment in use.
If the prime objective of the health system is to ensure that Canadians have timely access to quality health care services, there are growing concerns that the current and future supply of health care professionals, be it physicians, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, technicians, and others is not able, now or into the future, to meet the demand for health services.
While the 2004 health accord introduced a wait times reduction fund, the reality has been that moneys from this fund have already been transferred to the provinces and territories on an equal per capita basis for day-to-day operations of their health systems, based on specific provincial priorities, not necessarily aligned to a pan-Canadian perspective. Now is the time for renewed strategic investment in a shared national policy that will have a measurable and direct impact on wait times across the country.
More can and should be done to establish a pan-Canadian solution that focuses on graduating more health care professionals across the country. ACAHO is strongly supportive of the proposal by the Health Action Lobby to establish a five-year, $1 billion health human resources infrastructure fund. The essence of the fund is for the federal government to work with the provinces and territories to develop the necessary capacity to train the next generation of health care professionals. A copy of the proposal has been left with the clerk.
In addition to human resources, investments in information and communications technologies can have a more powerful and transformative impact on the overall organization, delivery structure, and performance of the health system. Not only can electronic health records improve the efficient exchange of patient information, minimize the duplication of diagnostic tests, and improve health outcomes and patient safety, they can also be a significant driver of how providers organize themselves and work together to provide care. ACAHO would encourage all levels of government to consider the additional investment that Canada Health Infoway requires and its significant payback to the system and to Canadians.
I will now ask my colleague, Dr. Slutsky, to make some closing comments on health innovation.