Spending on health care continues to grow at rates considerably faster than inflation. Many provinces are now asking hard questions about value for money, and in particular, the quality of health care they are receiving for this increased spending. Amongst other effects, this has resulted in increasing attention from provincial governments to so-called “funding arrangements” – the processes through which provincial health ministries (and increasingly regional health authorities) purchase or pay for services for their ‘constituents’. An entire new lexicon is emerging along with this scrutiny – activity-based-funding, pay-for-performance, and so on. But the labels are often simply new names for old practices or, worse, can be misleading descriptions and appear, at times, to be put into practice on a wing and a prayer.

Is there really anything innovative in all of this? What is the evidence base supporting the ‘new’ approaches? And how is the public to understand the confusing array of fact and fiction regarding health system funding, particularly in the ramp-up to the expiry of the federal/provincial/territory health accord in 2014? These are some of the questions that CHSPR’s 2012 health policy conference will tackle. It will bring together leading experts to share lessons learned from around the world. This day-and-one-half program will be organized to help participants understanding the roles funding policies play in creating incentives for high-performing health care systems. Drawing from international experiences, speakers will examine the complex roles funding policies play in creating efficient, effective and safe health care systems and discuss the role, and emerging evidence, of innovations in funding policies in Canada and beyond.

Senior faculty members from the School of Population and Public Health will be meeting with representatives from the School of Public Health and Primary Care (SPHPC) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong to discuss potential collaborations, mainly on research projects and student exchanges.


The School of Public Health and Primary Care (SPHPC) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong is a comprehensive school of public health research and teaching that strives to maintain a world-class standard of excellence in training public health professionals. SPHPC aims to advance the health of populations regionally and internationally, working in cross-cutting collaboration with partners from a diverse range of disciplines and institutions.

Throughout the years, SPHPC has made numerous collaborations with universities in Asia, with a particularly strong network with universities in Mainland China. As one of the leading institutes in Hong Kong, SPHPC of CUHK has established friendships with oversea institutes, including the Oxford University, the Cardiff University, University of Leeds, University of London, and Teikyo University. Situated in Hong Kong, it has solid relationships with South-East Asia Public Health Education Institutes Network (SEA PHEIN) and believe that they can serve as a bridge for the university networks in the West.

or many clinical cases, patient preferences are crucial in making appropriate health care decisions. Where benefits do not necessarily outweigh harms, choices usually hinge on trade-offs that only patients can decide on. In recognition of this, decision aids have been developed to help patients understand complex medical information so they can become informed and engage in shared decision-making. However, in decisions that are unfamiliar and require the comprehension of a considerable amount of complicated information, psychology research has shown that people frequently make systematic errors that lead to poor choices. The term “nudge” was first used to describe “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.” This research seeks to examine whether we can “nudge” patients to overcome these errors, leading to more appropriate decisions.

Presented By:
Dr. Nick Bansback
CHÉOS Scientist
Assistant Professor, School of Population and Public Health, UBC
Associate, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation

Please join CHÉOS in welcoming Dr. Bansback on February 29 @ the Hurlburt Auditorium. This talk is open and will include a light lunch.

On February 29, SPPH's first, second and People's Choice winners will compete in the 3MT semi-finals, being held in the Graduate Student Centre Ballroom.

Please stop by and support our students as they take on challengers from across UBC:

Heat 1: 1:30pm – SPPH student Alden Blair will be competing
Heat 2: 3:00pm – SPPH students Stephen Pan and Jason Tan de Bibiana

NEW GOALS FOR A NEW MILLENIUM? THE POLITICS OF GENDER, ENVIRONMENT AND BIODIVERSITY
Ferida Akhter, Executive Director, UBINIG, Bangladesh
5-6:30 pm, Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Green College, Coach House