Health care renewal in Canada : Clearing the road to quality

The Health Council has a blunt and simple message – the health of Canadians will not be improved by a focus only on access to health care services. [...] The purpose of the Accord was to ensure that Canadians: • have access to an appropriate health care provider 24 hours a day, seven days a week; • have timely access to diagnostic procedures and treatments; • do not have to repeat their health histories or undergo the same tests for every provider they see; • have access to quality home and community care services; • have access to the drugs they n [...] The 2004 10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care In September 2004, the prime minister and premiers signed a second health care agreement based on the following principles: • universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness, and public administration; • access to medically necessary health services based on need, not ability to pay; • reform focused on the needs of patients to ensure tha [...] They also recognized the need to invest in the health care workforce, in strategies to help Canadians make choices for healthy living, in information technology to make health care safer and more efficient, and in reporting to the public on how the system is performing. [...] Page 10 Table 1. Summary of Progress on Key Elements of the First Ministers’ Agreements on Health Care - continued Key commitments Summary of progress Assessment of progress Information Place priority on the Additional funding to Canada Implementation of the electronic management implementation of electronic Health Infoway.