Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Public Involvement in Healthcare Governance
(1980 – 2007)
Synopsis
The Canadian federal and provincial governments have long recognized the importance of involving the public in decision making about the healthcare system, as illustrated by numerous government reports dating back to the early 1970s. While the purpose of increased public involvement has not been without its difficulties, there are still numerous examples of public involvement in decision making at all levels of the healthcare system in almost every province.
One aspect of the Building a Public Dialogue Framework for Defining the Medicare Basket project is to foster and promote public participation in healthcare decision making. One of the main deliverables of the research project is a framework which assists healthcare organizations and governments: 1) choose appropriate opportunities for public involvement around coverage and health resource allocation decisions, and 2) structure meaningful and effective public engagement exercises specific to these issues.
The framework incorporates research findings from various fields and is meant to be employable by a wide range of users. It is crucial however that it is applicable to the Canadian context. In order to ensure this Canadian applicability, a review of Canadian experiences with public participation in healthcare was conducted. The annotated bibliography was developed as part of the review.
The annotated bibliography contains articles on Canadian public participation in healthcare governance published in academic journals between 1980 and 2007. It provides a broad overview of the Canadian experience of public participation in healthcare decision making.
The annotations describe the public participation exercise outlined in the articles and identify lessons learned. In some cases, the synopsis is a little longer than standard annotations. The purpose is to portray the central points of the articles rather than just provide a brief description of their subject matter. Where available, the original abstract for an article is also provided.
Decision makers and researchers continue to show a good deal of interest in how best to involve the public in healthcare decision making and healthcare governance. The annotated bibliography should serve as a valuable resource for these discussions. The bibliography may also serve as a useful starting point for those coming into this field of study. For users who may be interested in a particular topic concerning Canadian public participation, an index of articles by topic is provided at the end of the bibliography.
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