Spending on health care continues to grow at rates considerably faster than inflation. Many provinces are now asking hard questions about value for money, and in particular, the quality of health care they are receiving for this increased spending. Amongst other effects, this has resulted in increasing attention from provincial governments to so-called “funding arrangements” – the processes through which provincial health ministries (and increasingly regional health authorities) purchase or pay for services for their ‘constituents’. An entire new lexicon is emerging along with this scrutiny – activity-based-funding, pay-for-performance, and so on. But the labels are often simply new names for old practices or, worse, can be misleading descriptions and appear, at times, to be put into practice on a wing and a prayer.

Is there really anything innovative in all of this? What is the evidence base supporting the ‘new’ approaches? And how is the public to understand the confusing array of fact and fiction regarding health system funding, particularly in the ramp-up to the expiry of the federal/provincial/territory health accord in 2014? These are some of the questions that CHSPR’s 2012 health policy conference will tackle. It will bring together leading experts to share lessons learned from around the world. This day-and-one-half program will be organized to help participants understanding the roles funding policies play in creating incentives for high-performing health care systems. Drawing from international experiences, speakers will examine the complex roles funding policies play in creating efficient, effective and safe health care systems and discuss the role, and emerging evidence, of innovations in funding policies in Canada and beyond.