Correspondents: Aisha Gomez and Roosa Tikkanen, the Commonwealth Fund
In October 2017, Canada’s provincial and territorial health ministers attended a two-day meeting last fall in Edmonton to discuss the nation’s most pressing health concerns. Among the top priorities were collaborative efforts to address the opioid epidemic, which ministers acknowledged has become a national public health crisis. Among the strategies discussed were an electronic prescription database that would be available across provincial borders, harm reduction measures, and addressing regulatory barriers. The two-day meeting also covered other priorities such as cannabis legalization, prescription drug coverage and access, home and indigenous health, and mental health.
