Book Review – Canadian Health Reforms from the mid 1990s

Design for the Future of Health care; Larry Bryan; (1996)

Healthy incentives: Canadian health reform in an international context; William McArthur (Editor), Cynthia Ramsay (Editor), Michael Walker (Editor); (1996)


It is sometimes useful to read two similar type books at the same time in order to contrast them and see different angles. This book review is part of a series looking at books in the technology, health services, and innovation domains.



It is nearly 25 years since the “Design for the Future of Health care” and “Healthy incentives” were published. It is extremely useful to examine the older publications and see what was being discussed then and how the healthcare system was evolved since those publications.

The mid-1990s were formative years in Alberta, Canada as many healthcare reforms took place. The most significant of these was Regionalization where various independent hospitals were merged into a common organizational structure based upon geographical regions.

There was a review of these books written in Quill & Quire in 1996.