THE RESILIENT HEALTHCARE COALITION
Building Stronger Canadian Health Care Systems
Toronto, May 5, 2021 - The Resilient Healthcare Coalition (RHC) is a collaborative of like-minded health system partners providing leadership, insights, and support required to bring health system resilience to the forefront of Canadian health and innovation policy. The goal of the RHC is to create stronger Canadian healthcare systems in a post-pandemic world.
The concept of health system resilience is neither a new nor exclusively Canadian. In fact, COVID-19 has supercharged a global policy discussion centred around how best to make healthcare systems more shock-proof and less fragile. This conversation is exceedingly relevant in the Canadian context; whether sitting in public health agencies or hospitals or community organizations or long-term care homes, health system leaders across Canada were forced to confront systems that were too underfunded, underprepared and inflexible to deliver the care required to meet individual health needs.
The results are clear: from supply chains under strain, to cancer patients facing testing and treatment delays, to ballooning surgical wait times for patients, COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated numerous pre-existing system challenges, each made exponentially worse by the pandemic.
“One of the lessons learned from this pandemic is that a significant investment in resilient health care systems is not only beneficial in avoiding service disruptions, workforce shortages and better use of public funds; it can also save lives.” – Eva Villalba, Executive Director, Coalition Priorité Cancer au Québec & Co-Chair of the Resilient Healthcare Coalition
In light of this discussion, and against the backdrop of recent federal budget, the RHC believes that resilient healthcare systems can best be created through partnerships, solutions and interventions that: (1) drive improved patient outcomes by better providing and coordinating resources, information and technology; (2) improve health system performance by identifying and profiling examples of innovation and ingenuity; and (3) support the belief that spending on healthcare is an investment to be maximized, not a cost to be contained.
Since the formation of the RHC just over a month ago, on March 31, 2021, the coalition has already taken a number of steps towards promoting healthcare resilience. The RHC developed a “Wish List” for Budget 2021 and launched the new Resilient Healthcare Podcast, with the first episode discussing Budget 2021. The coalition has also developed a policy and communications agenda that maps out the partnerships, solutions and interventions needed to support the health and wellbeing of all people living in Canada, both now and in the long-run.
“The federal government must work constructively with the life sciences sector to create a better environment for the development and commercialization of new vaccines, medicines, and health technologies in Canada in order for Canada to be better prepared to respond to future health emergencies as we have had to do with COVID-19 over the past year” – Jason Field, President and CEO, Life Sciences Ontario & Co-Chair of the Resilient Healthcare Coalition
For more information or to schedule an interview contact:
Genevieve Tallmeister – Coordinator
Resilient Healthcare Coalition
https://www.resilienthealthcare.ca/
Access the PDF Press Release here.
