News Release

1996-23
March 7, 1996

Health Services Research Fund to contribute to renewal of health care system

OTTAWA - Health Minister David Dingwall today released additional information on the Health Services Research Fund (HSRF) announced in the March 6 federal budget as a measure to help renew Canada's health care system. The purpose of the Fund is to provide substantial new resources for health services research in Canada.

The Minister will consult with provinces and territories and interested private sector partners to determine how to establish and manage the HSRF that will belong to all investors.

"The Health Services Research Fund is a sound investment in maintaining a health care system that is considered the best in the world," said the Minister. "It will strengthen our research efforts so that decisions affecting health care, treatment and prevention are based on real evidence."

The federal government contribution of $65 million over five years includes $50 million in new funds and the reallocation, from existing budgets, of $1 million per year from Health Canada, and $2 million per year from the Medical Research Council.

The Medical Research Council will administer the fund on behalf of all partners and coordinate peer review selection of research projects.

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For information:
Monette Haché
Health Canada
(613) 957-1803

March 1996

Health Services Research Fund

Background

In the March 6, 1996 federal budget, the Government of Canada announced that it will provide $65 million over five years to help establish a Health Services Research Fund.

Renewing Canada's health caresystem

Canadians value and take pride in their health care system. They are concerned when they hear about the potential for "rationing", they worry about hospital cutbacks, and they sometimes wonder how universal medicare can be sustained with all the pressures on the system, given the array of new technologies and treatments that constantly arrive on the scene.

Knowing which new technologies and techniques to invest in, which old ones to retain or abandon, and how to organize health services to get the maximum benefit from available resources, is essential. Every dollar spent on health care is a dollar that is unavailable for other purposes. At the level of public expenditures, these are dollars that are not available to stimulate economic development or to reduce public debt. At the level of private expenditures, these are dollars that add to the cost of living and to the cost of doing business in Canada.

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that a good deal of what our health system does is either not effective in terms of improving the health of Canadians, or unnecessarily favours expensive forms of intervention when lower cost alternatives would work just as well or better. This is an issue of economics and health: Canadians should get full value for their health dollar, whether they pay through their taxes, through their employment-based supplementary benefits, or directly out of pocket. Canadians should also be able to get the maximum health benefits from current knowledge.

Objectives

The new Health Services Research Fund will provide significant new resources for health services research. It will also improve the management of health research, given that decision-making in the health sphere is highly decentralized. By participating in the establishment of research priorities and the funding of research, partners will have direct access to health research results and will be in a better position to adopt and apply new knowledge. Canadians value research for the creativity and imagination that scientists have; the time has come to be equally creative and imaginative in how the public and private sectors organize themselves to invest in research and earn the dividends that it offers.

Creating a National Partnership

In launching this new fund, the federal government wants to forge a true partnership with the provinces and the private sector. This means that Health Canada and the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC) will each occupy only a single seat on the governing body for this fund, and that the federal government will consult directly with potential partners on the best means of establishing an independent fund that will belong to all of its partners.

The $65 million that the federal government is investing in the Fund is unconditional: Health Canada and the MRC are confident that potential partners will be attracted to this new initiative. It gives all partners an opportunity to influence priority setting at the national level; it allows them to realize economies of scale in their research investments both by avoiding unnecessary duplication as well as by sharing in the costs of research that an individual partner might find too expensive on its own; and it streamlines the processes of research uptake and application. Fund partners are decision makers in their own right, and their motive for investing in research is to generate the evidence they need to make sound decisions.

How it will work

The Health Services Research Fund will be operated as an endowment at arm's length from the federal government. Funds will be invested at the direction of the partners in ways that ensure that it will be a lasting presence on the Canadian scene, is fully funded and functioning in five years when the federal government has completed its contributions.

In keeping with the government's resolve to ensure that this Fund is a real partnership, the determination of research priorities, the establishment of a process for issuing calls for proposals, and the development of an investment strategy and other plans, will occur only after Fund partners are identified.

An important governing principle is that research funds will be awarded on the basis of peer review. The Medical Research Council of Canada, which will administer the Fund on behalf of the partners, will put in place a peer-review process that draws on the expertise and experience of Fund partners.

Creation of this new Fund does not in any way affect the resolve of the MRC to support the full range of health research disciplines. Neither does the new Fund imply any near-term change in Health Canada's National Health Research and Development Program, which exists to support health services research and population health research relevant to the Department's missions and business lines.