Healthcare is a social contract between citizens and their government that puts the healthcare citizen at the focus of the mandate, meeting the citizen’s values and expectations – universality, quality, and access. Canada’s healthcare system is straining to fulfill this promise and as currently designed, is unsustainable.

It is time for a wholesale redesign of the healthcare system. If “patient-centred care” is to have any meaning, the current structure of healthcare silos must be bent around to provide a comprehensive 360 degrees of care that treats Canadians as “healthcare citizens” – with the right to expect timely and appropriate care and equal treatment regardless of age, income and postal code.

CARP is calling for a wholesale re-design of the healthcare system in its submission to the Advisory Panel on Health Innovation: