Canada faces mounting complex health challenges such as stem cell and regenerative medicine technologies, global disease threats, inadequate treatments for mental health conditions and many more chronic disorders. The spectre of unsustainable costs looms with the rising prevalence of dementia and the demands of personalized medicine. We must urgently confront inequities in services for our most vulnerable populations including Indigenous Peoples, new immigrants and those living in poverty or geographic isolation. Canada’s newest war veterans returned home with major mental and physical health issues we are ill equipped to address. Health informatics and ‘big data’ have created new questions about privacy as we converge large datasets to enable meaningful analytics. The opportunity to ‘federalize’ key components of the health system such as drug cost coverage requires evidence-based decision-making.
OUR IMPACT ON CANADIAN HEALTHCARE
The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) brings together Canada’s top-ranked health and biomedical scientists and scholars from all disciplines across our nation’s universities, healthcare and research institutes to make a positive impact on the urgent health concerns of Canadians. These Fellows evaluate Canada’s most complex health challenges and recommend strategic, actionable solutions. Since 2006 the CAHS has successfully engaged a wide variety of public and private organizations. These sponsors represent patients and families, professionals, health system leaders, policy-makers, NGOs, philanthropic organizations and private industry providers. They have co-invested in rigorous, independent assessments that address key health issues with outcomes that have shaped their strategic policy and initiatives. Our common goal is to provide advice as the authoritative, informed voice that helps put change into action for a healthier Canada.
OUR FINANCIAL NEED
The CAHS has the potential to conduct a larger number of timely assessments vital to the future health and wellbeing of Canadians. However, our ability to serve Canada is constrained by a lack of multi-year funding to support sufficient personnel and the permanent infrastructure required to fulfill the full potential of this critical mission. Increasing our project management and research staff to assist our Assessments Committee and the expert panel members in their detailed review and report preparation would enable the CAHS to attract and partner more effectively with external stakeholder sponsors and significantly reduce the cost of each assessment. The long-term net benefit to Canada’s health sector—and ultimately the health of Canadians—would be substantial!
HOW YOU CAN HELP
To date, the CAHS has relied on modest revenues from membership dues (now reaching $100,000 per year) and one-time-only funds received from assessments or annual forum sponsors (total of ~ $2.7million to date). CAHS currently receives no additional federal funding. Our goal is to obtain additional annual revenues that will enable us to:
- Conduct two assessments per year at an estimated annual total cost of $1 to 1.5 million;
- Establish a permanent trust fund of $5 million to support the activities of our Fellows in service to Canada; and,
- Expand our mission to include multi-disciplinary working groups of Fellows on specific topics of interest, round-tables that encourage dialogue with public and private stakeholders, improved communication and dissemination of expert advice.
Please contact us today to learn how you, or your organization, can help the Academy better serve our country and improve the future health and wellbeing of Canadians.