Health care remains a top policy priority in Canada and a key defining characteristic of Canadian identity. Under Canada's universal, publicly funded health insurance plan (Medicare), all Canadians have access to medically necessary hospital and doctor care regardless of the ability to pay. Yet, like health systems across the industrialized world, Canada's faces growing challenges. An aging and increasingly diverse population, global pandemics, emerging and more costly medical technologies and drugs, and rising public expectations about timely access to care, put additional demands on already stretched health care resources. The site of care is shifting as more care moves out of hospitals and into home and community. Individuals and communities are demanding a greater role in decision-making. There are increasing pressures to harmonize domestic health care policies with global "benchmarks." In spite of billions of new health care dollars, public concerns about wait times for non‐emergency care continue to fuel debate about health system sustainability and the need for private pay care options.

This course (and HAD5011H, its counterpart for students in the MSc and PhD research stream) is the first of two courses which develop and apply a policy analysis "tool kit" to critically analyze key issues and trends in Canada's health care system and health policy. Course sections examine the current state of health care in Canada, the public-private mix, the influence of powerful interest groups, and the determinants of health, paying particular attention to the ideas, interests, and institutions which have shaped the Canadian health care system in the past and which now shape its future. This graduate course is designed for health professionals and students of health policy who need to "make sense" of a rapidly changing and increasingly politicized health care environment in which "evidence" is often only one factor driving the pace and direction of change.

Objectives: upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: 1) Identify major elements of Canada's health care system. 2) Explain current health policy issues and trends in Canada and internationally. 3) Apply a conceptual policy analysis tool kit to "make sense" of a volatile health policy environment. 4) Write short, concise briefing notes which synthesize academic articles, policy papers, and reports. as the basis for evaluating and recommending policy options. 5) Value the need for a policy analytic approach.

Learner competencies (competencies refer to the National Center for Healthcare Leadership Competency Model): analytical thinking; communication skills; information seeking; initiative; innovative thinking; self-confidence.