System-level reform in healthcare delivery for patients and populations living with chronic disease

Abstract

Healthcare in Canada has generally not kept pace with the evolving needs of patients since the creation of medicare in the 1960s. Budgets for hospitals, physicians and prescription drugs make up the bulk of spending in health, despite the need for better prevention and management of chronic disease, the needed expansion of home-based care services and the call for reform of front-line primary care. Over the past decade, a number of Canadian health authorities have adopted the US-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement Triple Aim philosophy (better population health, better patient experience and better per capita cost of care) in order to build system-level change. The Atlantic Healthcare Collaboration was one attempt to initiate systemlevel reform in healthcare delivery for patients living with chronic disease.