Canadian Academy of Health Sciences blossoming despite fiscal constraints

Canadian Academy of Health Sciences blossoming despite fiscal constraints

Just one year after its official launch, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) is in negotiations to launch its first expert panel assessments and is diversifying its stakeholder base to include all players in the health sector. Yet the organization - one of three comprising the Canadian Council of Academies (CCA) - is facing an acute funding crunch that could potentially impede its ability to fulfill its mandate.

At its second annual meeting last week in Ottawa, the CAHS identified four topics for assessment (see chart). But it isn't expecting any assistance from the CCA, due to restrictions on how the CCA may use its $30 million in funding (R$, February 14/06).

"The firewall that surrounds that $30 million is large, thick and impenetrable. It's their money," says Dr Paul Armstrong, CAHS's inaugural president. "That's a bit of a paradox because when we started this journey, the idea was that there would be capacity to share (but) the contract forbids it."

The CCA's contract with the government provides funding to cover overhead and assessments requested by the government. Assessments conducted by any of its three member academies must find alternate funding sources.

The CAHS's response has been to build a business case in which the sponsors of assessments pay an additional amount to cover overhead of the organization. Armstrong says the CAHS will continue to be a committed collaborative partner to the CCA while carving out its own space within the Canadian health environment.

Funding aside, CAHS has moved quickly on several fronts, expanding its membership, reaching out to industry, universities and the provinces, and positioning itself as a neutral forum to tackle complex, vexing issues.

"This past year has been an extraordinary move forward," says Armstrong. "We've engaged the principal players across the whole spectrum of health and provided a series of topics we didn't have last year ... We have the stakeholders, the products and we've started to talk about how we can do business together."

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