From the Burgundy Chairs

Last October, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) published new guidelines aimed at modernizing Canada’s pricing framework for patented medicines. The guidelines and regulations are the culmination of a five-year process that began in 2016 and the regulations are currently scheduled to be implemented on July 1, 2021.

What changes in the Canadian pharmaceutical market drove these reforms? What goals is the Board looking to achieve through these forthcoming changes?  What does “success” look like over the coming years? And what key learnings is it taking away from a stakeholder engagement process that was both long and contentious?

In this episode, Peter Cleary and Ross Wallace are joined by PMPRB Executive Director Doug Clark, to discuss the PMPRB’s recent reform push, what happens next, and how the Board hopes to constructively engage the public, patients and other stakeholders over the coming months.

A career public servant, Doug Clark has a background in international trade law, intellectual property policy, pharmaceutical industry issues and competition law enforcement. In 2006, Doug became the Director of the Patent and Trademark Policy Directorate at Industry Canada, where he led a number of legislative and regulatory initiatives under the Patent Act and Trademarks Act, including the development of Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) and pharmaceutical patent litigation reform. In 2009, Doug joined the Competition Bureau as Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Civil Matters Branch, and most recently became Executive Director of the PMPRB in 2013.

2020 will undoubtedly be remembered as a challenging year for Canada’s health care system. From hospital capacity challenges to the realities of staff burnout, all facets of the health sector have been impacted by COVID-19 in some shape or form. Despite a turbulent year, there are positive examples across the country of initiatives, successes and wins within our health care system.

Physician Assistants, who play an integral role in a strong and sustainable Canadian health care system, are one such example.

For years, Physician Assistants (PAs) have advocated to establish the profession within the national health care framework, and in October of this year, both Ontario and Alberta announced PAs will soon be regulated. Both regulation announcements are milestones for the profession itself and for PAs who are on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, Patrick Nelson is joined by Sahand Ensafi and Kirsten Luomala to discuss PAs' role in Canada’s health care system pre- and post-regulation.

Kirsten Luomala began her career in the Canadian Armed Forces as a medical technician and she eventually graduated from the inaugural PA degree class. In the following years, Kirsten taught in the Forces’ PA program and she completed her Master of PA studies in Education and ER medicine. Now, Kirsten works at Alberta’s Demonstration Project in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Alberta, and she is the Alberta Board Director for the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants.

Sahand Ensafi is a Certified Physician Assistant working in Emergency Medicine at the University Health Network in Toronto. As the inaugural PA at UHN, Sahand is a passionate advocate for the profession. He is a McMaster PA Graduate, a clinical instructor and Assistant Professor at McMaster, and is the Ontario Board Director for the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants.

Like many jurisdictions in Canada, Ontario is struggling to regulate health professionals in a way that both protects patients and the public, but also provides flexible oversight to ensure health professionals are able to exercise their full scope of practice including their depth of knowledge, specific skill set and professional judgement.

In this episode, Harry Cayton, former Chief Executive of the U.K.'s Professional Standards Authority joins Ian Chesney to discuss regulated health professions in Ontario, lessons learned from across Canada and what challenges and opportunities Ontario’s regulatory model presents to policy makers.

Harry Cayton brings a wealth of knowledge to the field of professional regulation. He is the former Chief Executive for the Professional Standards Authority in the U.K. and has assisted many governments in Canada and around the world in enhancing and reforming their health care regulatory oversight mechanisms and processes.

Mr. Cayton received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and was awarded a Fellowship through Distinction from the Faculty of Public Health. He has also been awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, which recognizes his service to the health care system through regulatory reform.

Most recently, Harry led the public inquiry into the operations of the B.C. College of Dental Surgeons, which led to significant recommendations for regulatory reform of the profession.

It’s been one week since Governor General Julie Payette delivered the Speech from the Throne, opening Parliament with a significant commitment to long-term care. But what now? What will the national standards for long-term care mean for operators and, most importantly, residents and staff?

In this episode, Jodi Hall, Chair of the Canadian Association for Long Term Care (CALTC), joins Patrick Nelson to discuss what role the federal government can play in supporting Canada's seniors and how the current Liberal Government measures up.
 
Jodi Hall is a longtime advocate for seniors, the Chair of CALTC and the Executive Director of the New Brunswick Association of Nursing Homes (NBANH). Jodi started her career in long-term care as a nurse working with directly with residents before serving as the Director of Education and Practice with the New Brunswick Licensed Practical Nurse Association and Administrator of Orchard View Long Term Care. In addition to her role as Chair of CALTC and Executive Director of NBANH, Jodi is also the President of the New Brunswick Continuing Care Safety Association and Co-Chair of the Collaborative for Healthy Aging Care in New Brunswick.

The Ontario Long Term Care Association’s Wave 2 Action Plan for long-term care consists of 11 elements that aim to ensure long-term care homes have what they need moving forward to prevent and contain COVID-19. In this episode, Donna Duncan, Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA), joins Patrick Nelson to look back at lessons learned from the first wave of the pandemic and look forward to the measures needed to protect Ontario’s seniors and those who care for them.

 

Donna Duncan is the CEO of the Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA); the largest association representing long-term care providers in Canada. OLTCA represents almost 70% of Ontario's 637 long-term care homes, located in communities across the province. These homes provide care and accommodation to more than 70,000 residents annually. Donna is a passionate and experienced broader public sector executive and board director, with deep expertise in defining and leading successful transformational organization and system change initiatives in health care and post-secondary education. Donna has served as the interim CEO of The Ontario Caregiver Organization and, from 2010-2017, served as the President and CEO of the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, a large children’s mental health treatment, research and teaching centre.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges and, at the same time, a unique opportunity to embrace digital health solutions. Responding to COVID-19 requires swift and innovative thinking, and although digital health has been on governments’ radars for decades, progress has been slow.

Is the pandemic an opportunity to address the longstanding gaps in health technology? Will it motivate governments to procure and distribute innovation more efficiently? Or will buy in become a greater challenge due to the increased uncertainty that we are all experiencing?

In this episode, Inder Singh, Founder and CEO of Kinsa, and Dr. Sacha Bhatia, Chief Medical Innovation Officer at Women’s College Hospital, join Ross Wallace to discuss digital health care amidst the pressures of a global pandemic.

Inder Singh is the Founder and CEO of Kinsa, a public health company with a mission to stop the spread of contagious illness through earlier detection and earlier response. Prior to founding Kinsa, Inder was the Executive Vice President of the Clinton Foundation’s Health Access Initiative. In this role, he helped two million people access lifesaving HIV, malaria and tuberculosis medications by negotiating lower priced drugs and diagnostics in 70 developing nations. He also holds five academic degrees from Harvard – MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, Harvard’s Kennedy School, MIT Sloan and the University of Michigan.

Dr. Sacha Bhatia, Chief Medical Innovation Officer and F.M. Hill Chair in Health System Solutions at Women’s College Hospital studies the appropriateness of care, digital health innovations and health service design. Dr. Bhatia leads rigorous evaluation of digital health tools to move new models and policy approaches from theory to implementation, evaluation and spread, and scale across Canada. Dr. Bhatia is an award-winning cardiologist and he received both his MD and MBA in Health Care Administration from McGill University.

On July 8, the federal Liberal government updated the country on Canada’s finances. This fiscal snapshot was unlike any other as it arrived after four months of reactionary spending as the Trudeau Government responded to COVID-19. As the government moves beyond the emergency phase of its response and into a new recovery phase, what can we expect next? Will we see the budget originally drafted for March of this year make its way to the House this fall? Does the government have the confidence of the opposition parties to continue to navigate these uncharted times? In this episode, Peter Cleary, Stephanie Gawur and Ian Chesney unpack the economic outlook provided by Finance Minister Bill Morneau to Canadians yesterday. They discuss the issues the federal government will be tasked with this fall as health care organizations and providers brace for a potential second wave of COVID-19.

Building capacity in Ontario’s hospitals has been a core pillar in the province’s COVID-19 response. More than three months after the provincial government declared a state of emergency, the question is, how are our hospitals holding up? How are they navigating this next — somewhat uncertain — phase in Ontario’s health care transformation plans? In this episode, Dr. Naveed Mohammad, President and CEO of William Osler Health System, sits down with Dan Carbin to discuss system capacity, health equity, and hallway health care amidst the pressures of a global pandemic. Dr. Naveed Mohammad was appointed President and CEO of William Osler Health System in April 2020. Osler is one of Canada’s largest community hospital systems, serving 1.3 million people living in a fast growing and culturally-diverse region. Dr. Mohammad joined Osler in 1997 as an emergency physician at Etobicoke General and has held a number of progressively senior physician leadership roles. Most previously, Dr. Mohammad was Osler’s Executive Vice-President, Quality, Medical and Academic Affairs.

Almost a year and a half ago, Ontario introduced its large-scale plan to integrate health care providers with the goal of creating a patient focused and streamlined system. However, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the province just a few months after the first Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) were announced in December 2019.

In this episode, Keltie Gale, Senior Consultant at Santis Health, and Susan Fitzpatrick explore what Ontario's health transformation agenda might look like with the pressures of COVID-19. How will OHTs support the province’s COVID-19 response? How will ongoing issues, including system capacity and virtual care, be addressed?

Susan Fitzpatrick has over 30 years of experience in Ontario’s health care system. She was appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer of Ontario Health and as the inaugural CEO, Susan led the province’s newest health agency through one of the largest mergers in recent health history. In 2015, Susan was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network and just a few weeks ago, Susan joined the Santis Health team as a Senior Advisor. 

We know older adults are at a higher risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19 — so why are we seeing outbreaks in senior populations? In this episode, Dan Carbin and Dr. Samir Sinha explore the systemic vulnerabilities and the “double standard” in curbing the spread of COVID-19. Dr. Samir Sinha is a longtime advocate for the needs of older adults. He currently serves as the Director of Geriatrics at Sinai Health System and the University Health Network in Toronto and as the Peter and Shelagh Godsoe Chair in Geriatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital. In 2012, he was appointed by the Government of Ontario to serve as the expert lead of Ontario’s Seniors Strategy. Dr. Sinha is also an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Family and Community Medicine, and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.