Health care leaders and researchers have united to create Canada's first national health advisory body. Modelled on the US Institute of Medicine, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) will advise policy-makers, the public and public- and private-sector leaders.
“Other countries have benefited from having an organization at arm's length from government to provide objective advice on emerging issues,” says Dr. Martin Schechter, president-elect of the Academy.
“We keep reinventing committees to address emerging issues, whereas the IOM is ready to go when an issue arises,” says the head of the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology at the University of British Columbia.
CAHS is 1 of 3 “virtual” bodies that constitute the Canadian Academies of Science, which have been allocated $35 million over 10 years in federal funding. CAHS is seeking funding for infrastructure, staffing and travel costs. Clients will pay for reports.
In his 2004 Throne Speech, Prime Minister Paul Martin called the Academy “a source of expert advice on scientific aspects of important domestic and international issues.”
The initial lack of funds won't slow the organization down, says Schechter. “If there is funding to conduct an assessment, we can do it.”
CAHS members are drawn from medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, rehabilitation science and veterinary medicine. The interdisciplinary nature of the Academy makes it unique, says Schechter. He hopes their first project will assess the barriers to and benefits of fostering interdisciplinary health research.
“We have a partnership that involves all the health disciplines and the full spectrum of research, from test tube to population health. We really are going to be ‘advisers to the nation.’”
The Academy held its inaugural meeting Sept. 21 in Vancouver.