BOOMERANGST: Myths and Realities about health care for an aging population

February 22 & 23, 2011 Sheraton Wall Centre, Vancouver, BC

Overview
The Canadian population is aging. In 2011, the leading edge of the baby boom turns 65 – with the great bulge of that generation to follow. That simple fact has focused important attention on some key realities such as a decrease in the full-time labour force and an increase in some service needs. But it has also spawned a dizzying number of assertions, myths, half-truths and misunderstandings about the implications of aging for our health care system. These tend to deflect attention away from the very serious decisions that will need to be made over the coming decades.

So how do we untangle the truth from the fiction and begin to make the changes and encourage the innovations that will be needed if we are to provide appropriate care for an aging population? These are a few of the critical questions that will be addressed by some of the world’s experts, at CHSPR’s 2011 health policy conference. The program over the day and a half conference will be organized around a series of compelling questions, in which are embedded some of the leading myths that undermine our capacity to focus innovation and resources where they are most needed. Speakers will identify and parse these myths, and discuss the possible, the probable, and the emerging innovations and evidence from Canada and beyond.

Proposed Topics (subject to change):
Demographics and the Media
Is aging a disease?
Will aging bankrupt the health care system?
Is it possible (or sensible) to differentiate health and social care?
Aging in (what) place?
Whose death is this anyway?

Confirmed Speakers (to-date):
• Jay Olshansky, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health

• Alan Cassels, School of Health Information Sciences at the University of Victoria

• John Sloan, Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia

• Adalsteinn Brown, Assistant Deputy Minister, Health System Strategy Division Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

• Jon Glasby, Director, Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham

• Carole Estabrooks, Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Translation

• Hsien Seow, Cancer Care Ontario Research Chair in Health Services Research

• Hon. Sharon Carstairs

• Dr. Michael Dolan, MD

• Steven Lewis, Health Policy Consultant, Saskatoon