Health insurance
Tommy Douglas' (centre left) number one concern was the creation of Canadian Medicare. In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan became the centre of a hard-fought struggle between the provincial government, the North American medical establishment, and the province's physicians, who brought things to a halt with a doctors' strike.
Further information: Health insurance
Health insurance is the primary mechanism through which individuals cover healthcare costs in industrialized countries. It can be obtained from either thepublicorprivatesector of the economy. InCanada, for example, theprovincial governmentsadminister public health insurance coverage to citizens and permanent residents. According to Health Canada, the political philosophy of public insurance in Canada is as follows:
The administration and delivery of health care services is the responsibility of each province or territory, guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act. The provinces and territories fund these services with assistance from the federal government in the form of fiscal transfers.[15]
And the driving force behind such a political philosophy in Canada was democratic socialistpoliticianTommy Douglas.
Contrasting with the U.S., but similar to Canada, AustraliaandNew Zealandhaveuniversal healthcaresystems known asMedicareand ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation), respectively.[16]
Australian Medicare originated with Health Insurance Act 1973. It was introduced by Prime Minister (PM)Gough Whitlam's Labor Government, and was intended to provide affordable treatment by doctors in public hospitals for all resident citizens. Redesigned by PMBob Hawkin 1984, the current Medicare system permits citizens the option to purchase private health insurance in atwo-tier health system.[17]
Research and scholarship
Considering the rapid pace at which the fields of medicine and health science are developing, it becomes important to investigate the most proper and/or efficient methodologies for conducting research. On the whole, "the primary concern of the researcher must always be the phenomenon, from which the research question is derived, and only subsequent to this can decisions be made as to the most appropriate researchmethodology, design, and methods to fulfill the purposes of the research."[18]This statement on research methodology places the researcher at the forefront of his findings. That is, the researcher becomes the person who makes or breaks his or her scientific inquiries rather than the research itself. Even so, "interpretive research and scholarship are creative processes, and methods and methodology are not always singular,a priori, fixed and unchanging."[19]Therefore, viewpoints on scientific inquiries into healthcare matters "will continue to grow and develop with the creativity and insight of interpretive researchers, as they consider emerging ways of investigating the complex social world."[20]
Clinical trials
Further information: Clinical trials
Clinical trials are a means through which the healthcare industry tests a new drug, treatment, or medical device. The traditional methodology behind clinical trials consists of various phases in which the emerging product undergoes a series of intense tests, most of which tend to occur on interested and/or compliant patients. The U.S. government has an established network for tackling the emergence of new products in the healthcare industry. The Food and Drug Administration(FDA) typically conducts appropriate trials on new drugs coming frompharmaceuticalcompanies.[21]Along with the FDA, theNational Institutes of Healthsets the guidelines for all kinds of clinical trials relating toinfectious diseases. Forcancer, theNational Cancer Institute(NCI) sponsors a series or cooperative groups likeCALGBandCOGin order to standardize protocols for cancer treatment.[22]
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2006)