Panda Works to Unravel the Complexity of Health Care Delivery

Dr. William Ghali’s (MD ’90, a Panda) passion for health services research was ignited during a journal club series during his latter part of his residency at Queen’s University that focused on critical appraisal. The primary focus of this journal series was to examine how to apply the information in published studies to best treat patients.

 

He trained in health services research and epidemiology at the Health Research Unit at Boston University, where he also completed a Masters of Public Health Degree. During his time in Boston, Ghali studied the variability in health care and the need for standardization as a way to reduce the potential for mistakes and errors. Upon returning to Canada, he turned his focus to improving the Canadian health care system. 

 

While Dr Ghali’s early research career studied the shortcomings of the health care system, he now focuses his efforts on identifying innovative solutions to improve care. As the Director of Research for the Ward of the 21^st Century at the Foothills Hospital, the focus is now on innovative health care delivery. For example, the Ward of the 21^st Century is developing web-based tool for that will standardize hospital discharge information for other health care providers who will see a patient once they have been released from the hospital.

 

“The common thread to my research is to examine why do we do what we do. The health care system has many places where quality can be improved and things can be standardized,” says Ghali.

 

His work focuses on evaluating health care delivery for four inter-related high incidence and prevalence conditions -- cardiac disease, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease, and venous thromboembolic disease.  These are all serious conditions that represent a significant burden both in terms of human suffering and health economics. Improved effectiveness and efficiency of health care delivery for patients with these conditions is clearly important to all Canadians.  

           

Ghali’s research has significantly impacted the care of patients with the medical conditions that are the focus of his research.  Specifically, his work  dealt with equity, and in some instances inequity, of access to care for these conditions (by age, by sex/gender, by geographic location of residence, by income level, by race/ethnicity),He studies practice variation across regions and hospitals, the implications of such variation on quality of care, economic considerations in rationing of health services, cost impact of adverse events and waiting times for cardiac care.

 

Dr. Ghali’s work has already begun to impact public policy in Canadian health care. “In a practical community based setting, I am already using the fruits of Dr. Ghali’s research to make a difference in the lives of individual patients. On a much wider basis, Dr. Ghali’s work will influence all of us in applying best practices to provide the most efficacious care to patients in the population in general,” said Dr. John Hickie, who was one of two alumni who nominated Dr. Ghali for the 2009 Faculty of Medicine Alumnus of Distinction. 

 

Dr. Ghali, is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary.   He holds a Government of Canada Research Chair in Health Services Research, and is also a Senior Health Scholar in the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.

 

Join us as we celebrate Dr. William Ghali and Dr. James Kennedy, winners of the 2009 Faculty of Medicine Alumni of Distinction Award for Research at our Annual Alumni Dinner on October 3 at the Calgary Zoo. Click here for more details.