Wellesley Institute

Wellesley Institute works in research and policy to improve health and health equity in the GTA through action on the social determinants of health.

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Bob Gardner

Health Reform Through an Equity Lens: Access to High Quality Rehabilitation

The Wellesley Institute works to identify how to embed equity in health system priorities, drivers, planning and service delivery to ensure that all have equitable access to high quality health care. We and the Canadian Working Group on HIV and Rehabilitation (CWGHR) have been working together. We both see access to high-quality rehabilitation as one of the crucial issues of health care reform in the coming period:

  • With an aging population, the increasing incidence and impact of chronic conditions and other system trends, more and more people will be relying on rehabilitation care.  High quality and responsive rehab will be an increasingly essential component of a patient-centred continuum of care and crucial to creating and sustaining an effective overall health system.
  • But this potential is not being realized: inequitable access to rehab adversely affects increasing numbers and reduces the quality and efficiency of the health care system.
  • CWGHR and its partners working across many health conditions recognize that access to rehabilitation is vital to being able to live as well as possible with complex chronic and episodic conditions.
  • The Wellesley Institute works to operationalize equity within system priorities and planning to ensure all have equitable access to high quality health care.  We see enhancing equitable access to rehab as a crucial lynchpin in creating a more responsive and equitable overall health care system.

CWGHR and the Wellesley have jointly developed a Discussion Paper on Equitable Access to Rehabilitation.  Now, together with many other partner organizations, we are building upon the findings and directions in this paper to drive a wide-ranging initiative to improve equitable access to rehab.  We will facilitate conversations and connections with a broad range of sectors, identify promising policies and programs, and build on the best available evidence and innovative practices in the field.

We hope you will share this paper with your colleagues, organizations and networks, and use the information and suggested questions to join the discussion and find new ideas to ensure equitable access to rehabilitation for people living with complex, chronic conditions.  If you have any questions, or to share ideas of effective models or opportunities to move these issues forward, and/or if you are interested in organizing a discussion session, please contact either Bob Gardner at bob@wellesleyinstitute.com or Elisse Zack at ezack@hivandrehab.ca.

Download the paper here. Equitable Access to Rehabilitation Discussion Paper

 

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Bob Gardner

Bob Gardner

Bob Gardner was the Director of Policy at Wellesley Institute, 2006-2014. His expertise was in health equity policy working with governments, LHINs, service provider networks, and community partners to develop effective strategies and action plans to enhance health equity. He served on many health policy advisory forums, working groups and boards. Bob has a Ph.D. in sociology; has been an academic, public sector executive and consultant; and has been a community activist on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, and other issues

Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Revised by the Ceremonial Committee at the University of Toronto Office of Indigenous Initiatives in April 2021.