The Search for Improving Value in Canadian Healthcare: Holy Grail or Steady Progress?

Abstract

Canada is one of the world's highest per capita spenders on healthcare. Yet provinces consistently boast lackluster performance on important measures of their population's health and access to healthcare (Davis et al. 2014; Doty et al. 2020). Spurred by public reporting, unease among governments about how to fix the problem and the lack of obvious solutions, much discussion focuses on improving the "value" of spending on healthcare (Papanicolas et al. 2018; Shrank et al. 2019).