Canada - World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

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Health systems in transition Canada
governance and accountability. They have also established more arm’s length
and special purpose intergovernmental bodies (illustrated at the bottom of
Fig. 2.1) to support work in priority areas determined by F/P/T governments. In
most cases, the federal government provides a significant share of the funding.
The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) was
first established under the name of the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health
Technology Assessment. Its mandate is to encourage the appropriate use of health
technology by influencing decision-makers through the collection, creation
and dissemination of HTA of new medical technologies and pharmaceutical
therapies. Given the existence of provincial HTA organizations, this also means
that CADTH coordinates the dissemination of existing studies throughout
the country as well as original HTAs in areas not covered by the provincial
agencies. CADTH is funded by Health Canada and by the provinces and
territories (in proportion to population) with the exception of Quebec. In 2003,
CADTH launched the Common Drug Review (CDR), a single, pan-Canadian
process for reviewing new drugs and making formulary recommendations to
the government members of CADTH (Menon & Stafinski, 2009).
Established in 1994, the Canadian Institute for Health Information
(CIHI) was a response to the desire of F/P/T governments for a nationally
coordinated approach to gathering and analysing their respective financial
and administrative data. Its core functions include identifying and defining
national health indicators and frameworks, coordinating the development and
maintenance of pan-Canadian data standards, developing and managing F/P/T
health databases and registries, and disseminating health data through research
reports. By 2011, CIHI was maintaining a total of 27 databases and clinical
registries, including the National Health Expenditure Database, the National
Physician Database, the Hospital Morbidity Database, the Discharge Abstract
Database and the National Prescription Drug Utilization and Information
Systems Database. Approximately 80% of CIHI’s funding comes from Health
Canada and the remaining funds from provincial governments. CIHI also has
an ongoing partnership with Statistics Canada, as well as a strong advisory
relationship with the Conference of F/P/T Deputy Ministers of Health through
its 16-member board of directors.
Canada Health Infoway is a product of the 2000 First Ministers’ Accord on
Health Care Renewal and the priority assigned by F/P/T ministries of health to
the development of electronic health records (EHRs) using compatible standards.
Since its creation in 2001, Infoway has been allocated C$2.1 billion in federal
government funding to work with provincial and territorial governments to