Report of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation

Canadian Blood Services welcomes Unleashing Innovation: Excellent Healthcare for Canada, the recently released report by the federal Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation. We were pleased to participate in the panel’s national consultations and support its call for further pan-Canadian collaboration to promote sustainable, innovative health-care services and systems.
 

In 1997, at the height of the tainted blood scandal, federal, provincial and territorial ministers of health, with the exception of Quebec, enacted a Memorandum of Understanding that has fundamentally shaped today’s national blood system. This major pan-Canadian policy action involved substantial federal leadership and interprovincial collaboration.

Since then, the arm’s-length model it enabled has delivered ongoing value to governments and to Canadians. Accessible, standardized, lifesaving blood products are now the norm for Canadian patients — no matter where in the country they live.

We agree with the central priorities in the report and find they resonate with our own experience as we modernize the blood system:

• Health systems integration: We operate an integrated, pan-Canadian service delivery model that includes leading an interprovincial system for organ donation and transplantation.
   
• Better value from procurement: We have sole responsibility for tendering and procuring over 35 biological drugs (plasma protein products) valued at $500 million per year on behalf of the provinces and territories. Governments are benefiting from our recent success in negotiating $600 million in savings over five years through bulk purchasing these drugs.
   
• Patient engagement: We engage stakeholders in meaningful opportunities to contribute their input on key issues within the blood system through relationship-building, dialogue and consultation. A national liaison committee and five regional liaison committees of external stakeholders provide input directly to the board of directors, and we lead ad hoc consultations on major policy issues.

Canadian Blood Services looks forward to continued dialogue on this important discussion of health system innovation.  For more information, please see our November 2014 submission to the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation:  A Real-Time Lab for Pan-Canadian Innovation: Leveraging Canadian Blood Services’ Model for Better Value to Health-Care Systems.