Health Canada Online

Citation

(2001), "Health Canada Online", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 14 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2001.06214bag.001

Health Canada Online

Health Canada Onlinehttp://www.hc-sc.gc.ca

Health Canada is the federal department responsible for helping the people of Canada maintain and improve their health. In partnership with provincial and territorial governments, Health Canada provides national leadership to develop health policy, enforce health regulations, promote disease prevention and enhance healthy living for all Canadians. Health Canada ensures that health services are available and accessible to First Nations and Inuit communities. It also works closely with other federal departments, agencies and health stakeholders to reduce health and safety risks to Canadians.

Health Canada also administers the Canada Health Act, passed by parliament in 1984. This cornerstone of the Canadian health system, defines five criteria for the provision of health care:

1. 1.

   Public administration: requires that the administration of the insurance plan of a province be carried out on a non-profit basis by a public authority.

2. 2.

   Comprehensiveness: requires that all medically necessary services provided by hospitals and doctors are insured.

3. 3.

   Universality: requires that all residents of the province be entitled to public health insurance coverage.

4. 4.

   Portability: requires that coverage be maintained when a resident moves or travels within Canada or travels outside the country (coverage outside Canada is restricted to the coverage the resident has in his/her own province).

5. 5.

   Accessibility: requires reasonable access unimpeded by financial or other barriers to medically necessary hospital and physician services for residents, and reasonable compensation for both physicians and hospitals.

The Act provides the conditions and the criteria that provincial health insurance plans must meet, but does not regulate health care in provinces and territories. Each province and territory administers its own health care plan with respect to the five basic principles of the Canada Health Act. Provincial and territorial governments are responsible for the delivery of Canada's health care and hospital services. The federal government shares in the cost of these services through annual Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) allocations.

Health Canada Online (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/) is the organisation's Web site, and – to someone not familiar with the workings of the Canadian system, it is impressive. Available in either French or English, it is very user friendly with a wealth of information. The opening page presents just the logo, and buttons labelled English and Français. Pressing the relevant one of these takes you to a page of the latest news headlines, as well as a wealth of links to other pages.

For those who do not know about the way health care is provided in Canada, it is worth following the link to "the Health System", which provides an excellent summary of the way in which health care is provided, with downloadable acrobat files in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Many of the items listed on the front page serve as links to further relevant information. Funding, for example, provides links to Childhood and youth:

• •

  Community based programs;

• •

  Grants and awards;

• •

  Health and the Information Highway projects;

• •

  Health Transition Fund (home care, pharmacare, primary care reform, and integrated service delivery projects);

• •

  National Health Research and Development Program (NHRDP);

• •

  Population Health Fund; and Research projects

Many of these in turn lead on to more links. Following up on the research projects links led to two subgroups:

1. 1.

   Grants and Awards;

2. 2.

   Research projects and programs undertaken or sponsored by Health Canada.

The first of these provided links to information about funding programs available through Health Canada's National Health Research and Development Program (Personnel Awards Program), the Medical Research Council's (Career and Awards Program), and other programs, as well as the 1999-2000 Grants and Awards Guides (MRC). The second provided links to about 20 research projects, each of which provided comprehensive information.

Navigation around the site is easy – although it took a while to sort out the difference between the two listings of links on the first page. One of these is called Fast Find, and the other, Express Lanes.

The Fast Find links, to items ranging from AIDS to Youth, all take you to listings of items relevant to the particular topic. Express Lanes are direct links to specific sites. The description above indicates what happens when following a Fast Find link. Following an Express Lane link, for example, the National Forum on Health, takes you to the Forum's own Web page(s). As part of the federal government's commitment to health, the National Forum on Health was launched in 1994 to develop a new vision for Canada's health system. The Forum's mandate was to consult with Canadians and advise government on innovative ways to improve the health of Canadians. The Forum's final report and publications (including commissioned papers released in February 1998) are available.

As well as the easy to negotiate links, there is what seems to be a very efficient search engine. To demonstrate the vast wealth of material accessible from the site, a search for "quality" produced in only a few seconds a list of 3,905 documents, all with direct links to the document.

In addition to the links and search engine, navigation through the site can be done via an A-Z index, site map, branch or business line. Site map and A-Z index need little explanation, but branch and business line are probably not familiar terms. Branches are the individual departments or branches of Health Canada; business lines are particular activities, such as Health Policy, Planning and Information that encompass several departments. The business line "Management of Risks to Health", for example, encompasses Health Protection, Pest Management, Regulatory Agency, Health Promotion and Programs, and Medical Services. The business lines page also provides a very useful table showing the business line Relationship to organisational structure.

All in all, this is a highly recommended site with a vast range of links – all of which seemed to work – and a lot of extremely useful information. The only (minor) complaint I have about it (and it is not the fault of the site) is that a few of the links do not provide a return link or the option of taking the back arrow to get back to the Health Canada site. However, in most cases, it is possible to return by using the task bar at the bottom of your screen. If all else fails, though, it may be necessary to re-enter the site, so it is worth making it one of your bookmarks (for Netscape) or favourite places (for Microsoft). It seems to be updated on a regular basis, and many of the linked pages tell you at the beginning how recent the material is – a real plus!