Bone and Joint Canada
Making Strides

James P. Waddell, M.D., FRCSC
Coordinator, Canadian National Action Network
For the Bone and Joint Decade
Toronto, ON

A fourth meeting of Bone and Joint Canada was held at the time of the Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association in Halifax. As mentioned in previous updates, we have engaged a number of individuals from patient advocacy groups and government to join our meetings in the past. On this occasion, we were fortunate to have individuals join us from the operational side of health care delivery - Regional Health Care Managers and Chief Operating Officers of two major hospitals.

These people were able to give us a valuable insight into the problems facing hospital administrations and health regions in funding the increased demand for joint replacement surgery. They explained the decision-making process around allocation of hospital resources among competing priority programmes. 

Following this meeting, a comprehensive report detailing the long-term strategy for improving access to orthopaedic care across Canada has been developed. While focusing largely on the delivery of hip and knee replacement surgery, the group has worked hard to develop a model for care delivery that can be applied to other disease or operation-specific models. 

We have met with representatives of the Federal Government regarding health policy and promotion; we are anticipating a number of meetings with provincial officials to discuss different strategies for improving access to care within their jurisdictions.

It should be remembered that this is an orthopaedic surgeon-driven approach to this problem - orthopaedic surgeons from all regions have been actively involved in developing this programme and they will continue to be involved in terms of any discussions held with officials in their provinces or regions.

In other news from Bone and Joint Canada, we continue to move ahead with our educational programme under the direction of Dr. Veronica Wadey. Veronica is now firmly ensconced in the Wilson Centre for Education at the University of Toronto and has access to their facilities to refine and expand her innovative work in MSK curriculum. If you are interested in learning more about this "new way" to educate people about orthopaedic surgery, please contact her directly at: Cet e-mail est protégé contre les robots collecteurs de mails, votre navigateur doit accepter le Javascript pour le voir .

Finally, the joint venture between Bone and Joint Decade Canada and US Bone and Joint Decade in the Young Investigators Meeting continues to flourish. The next Young Investigators Meeting will be held in Toronto from October 26-28, 2007. Applications have been sent to all Division/Department Chairs in Orthopaedic Surgery across Canada and we anticipate a bumper crop of applicants.