Is there a crisis in Canadian health care? While the establishment of the Canadian health care system is widely considered a triumph of citizenship, after four decades the national program is in a fragile state marked by declining public confidence. In First Do No Harm, Sullivan and Baranek provide a concise introduction to the fundamentals of health care in Canada and examine various ideas for reforming the system sensibly. Arguing that administrators and policymakers should follow Hippocrates’ dictum “first do no harm” when evaluating and reforming the Canadian health care system, the authors discuss health care financing, popular Canadian health care myths, waiting lists and emergency room overcrowding, and home- and community-based health care. This book is an invaluable invitation to Canadians to think carefully and creatively about the present and future of our health care system.

Terrence Sullivan is a senior health service leader in Canada who has led Cancer Care Ontario for much of the last decade.Jean-Louis Denis is a professor at the École nationale d’administration publique.

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Patricia Baranek has an adjunct position in the Department of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.

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