There are frequent and sometimes heated debates in the United States about the pros and cons of the Canadian Healthcare System. The Canada Health Act mandates a single payor system and promises an efficient, comprehensive, universal, portable, and accessible healthcare system for all Canadians. While the United States and Canada have many common needs concerning healthcare, how each nation goes about meeting these needs follows two distinctly different paths.

In this seminar Dr. James Calvin, an American physician who has extensive leadership experience under both systems leads an informative discussion surveying the Canadian single payor system. He explains how it works, the administrative structure, funding models, what it does well, what needs improvement, and defines the most important adaptions that may be practical and useful for U.S. Physician Leaders as they develop robust health policies and seek ways to improve care delivery and outcomes in the United States.

1. Describe what it is like to work in a Canadian Health Care System (Ontario) in a relatable way
2. Describe its principles
3. Describe briefly how it is managed
4. Describe the good, bad and the ugly from an insider's perspective
5. Describe what changes might be necessary to make such a system work in the US

About the Speaker

Dr. James E. Calvin is the Richard Ivey Chair of Internal Medicine of Western University in London, ON and the Chief of Medicine of Affiliated Hospitals in London. It was as the Director of the Coronary Care Unit at the Ottawa Heart Institute that he first began combining his interests in administration and research. He held the position of Director of Technical Services at the Heart Institute in the 1980’s and was asked to become the Vice Chairman of the newly formed Working Group on Critical Care Services for the Ministry of Health of Ontario in 1989. During his time in Ottawa he was awarded the Young Investigator Award in 1986 and the Internal Medicine Award in 1988 from the Society of Critical Care Medicine in the United States for his studies of ventricular interactions in critical Illness.

Dr. Calvin returned to the United States in 1991 to become the first and founding Director of the CCU at Rush University and turned his interests toward clinical research in acute coronary syndromes (ACS) publishing the first validated risk patient stratification model in acute coronary syndromes and later updated this model with the addition of serum markers. His model also predicted resource utilization and clinical outcome. More importantly, he demonstrated the value of providing decision-support to treating physicians in the form of reminders to improve both quality and short-term outcome.

He acted as a steering committee member of the CRUSADE registry and was a Co-PI of the NIH-sponsored Heart Failure Adherence and Retention Trial (HART) which looked at the value of teaching self-management techniques to heart failure patients in an outpatient setting. Dr. Calvin continues to couple his research interests to improve quality of patient care with great adaptability and innovative thinking in improving organizational processes. He served as the Chairman of Adult Cardiology at Stroger Hospital of Cook County learning firsthand the challenges of the public sector. He was appointed Herrick Professor of Cardiology at Rush in 2002 and served as its Director of the Division of Cardiology for 10 years. He completed his MBA at the University of Tennessee in 2012 before taking the position at Western. He continues to combine departmental and hospital leadership roles with his research interests in chronic disease management of heart failure and quality improvement. He served as President of the Canadian Association of Professors of Medicine and served as the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President at London Health Science Center in 2018-2019. He founded the Center of Quality, Innovation and Safety at Western in 2020 and serves as its Medical Director.

Continuing Medical Education

The UT Health Science Center aims to improve human health through education, research, clinical care and public service. The University of Tennessee College of Medicine is committed to serving the state and region through programs of excellence in education, patient care, research and other public service initiatives, which advance the health of the general public. By conducting Continuing Medical Education activities that have been developed based upon varied needs assessment methodology and in full compliance with ACCME standards and University policies, the CME program will affect an improvement in the competence and knowledge of area physicians while increasing their appreciation of the importance of lifelong learning.

Accreditation

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Education through the joint providership of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine and the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business. The University of Tennessee College of Medicine is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Education Credits

Physicians: The University of Tennessee College of Medicine designates this live activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosures

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