$2.4-million gift from McGill Chancellor kick-starts crucial Healthier Societies Initiative
H. Arnold Steinberg launches interdisciplinary research to
create new road map for health care delivery
Ď㽶ĘÓƵ’s Chancellor, H. Arnold Steinberg, CM, has made
an extraordinary gift of $2.4 million to kick-start a major new
interdisciplinary research and teaching program aimed at creating a
new road map for the future of health care delivery.
Based at McGill’s Institute for Health and Social Policy, the
Healthier Societies Initiative is a five-year, cross-faculty effort
that will map what works and what doesn’t in the health systems
across the world’s leading economies and then rigorously examine
those systems in order to develop more effective – and affordable –
health-care delivery.
This wide-ranging initiative will draw on the expertise of top
researchers from across McGill, including the Faculties of
Medicine, Arts, Science, and others. A key aspect will be teaching
a new generation of leaders the skills needed to translate research
findings into public policy change. Two major conferences will be
convened over the five-year period, bringing together academics,
stakeholders and policy makers from around the world. Each stage of
the initiative will involve training graduate students and
postdoctoral fellows.
“It’s increasingly clear the medical delivery system is on a
serious collision course,” said Mr. Steinberg, a McGill alumnus
(BComm ’54), who became McGill’s 18th Chancellor in July 2009.
“We’re well past the point of being unsustainable.” A lifelong
champion of health-care causes, Steinberg spearheaded this
initiative. “I’ve been talking about this particular idea for
several years now. It’s essential that universities modify their
course and training offerings to service the huge demands that
health-care delivery requires.”
It is the combination of research and teaching that sets the McGill
Initiative apart from other worthy efforts to tackle the seemingly
insolvable problem of spiraling health-care costs that eat up ever
greater chunks of government budgets.
“Health-care costs have accelerated in affluent countries, rising
far faster than GDP growth, but gains in population health have not
kept pace,” added Dr. Jody Heymann, Founding Director of the
Institute for Health and Social Policy, who will lead the new
Initiative. “Moreover, as health-care expenditures rise, health
inequities are likely to grow and the gap in access to medical care
will increase.”
Heymann explained that the Healthier Societies Initiative is
intended to have an impact well beyond the initial five years –
sparking long-term change in technology, training and program
development, and developing a road map for real change in
health-care delivery. An internationally renowned researcher on
health and social policy, who has testified before the U.S. Senate,
Heymann has devoted her career to translating research into
policies and programs that will improve individual and population
health.
McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum said she is deeply grateful
for Steinberg’s “outstanding generosity, his visionary leadership,
and his deep commitment to addressing one of the critical issues of
our time.
“I know one of Mr. Steinberg’s great passions is health care, and I
am tremendously proud he has chosen to entrust his vision with our
world-class researchers here at McGill.”
Richard I. Levin, Vice-Principal of Health Affairs at McGill and
Dean of the University’s Faculty of Medicine, said the new
Initiative is exactly what is needed in terms of changing the way
we look at the delivery of health services.
“Medicine – and the delivery of health care – are changing more
rapidly now than at any time in our history,” he said. “This
Initiative represents an enormous step on the road to finding the
best way to deliver health services to the population at large, in
the context of defining optimal health care, which must be a shared
responsibility with academic medicine. I am extremely eager to
participate in such an important drive for better knowledge and
workable solutions to a problem that confronts all of us.”
For further information on McGill’s Institute for Health and Social
Policy, visit .
For further information on Campaign McGill, visit
.
ABOUT ARNOLD STEINBERG
H. Arnold Steinberg served for 19 years as Chair of the Board of
Governors of the Ď㽶ĘÓƵ-Montreal Children’s Hospital
Research Institute, as well as serving for 10 years on McGill’s
Board of Governors. He was the Founding Chair of the Board of the
Ď㽶ĘÓƵ Health Centre (MUHC), and he currently serves as
Vice-Chair of the Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of
Health Research (CIHR). Steinberg received a Doctorate of Laws from
McGill in 2000.
ABOUT THE GIFT
Chancellor Steinberg’s gift will cover the first three years of the
Healthier Societies Initiative. Further funding is being sought to
complete the five-year timeline. This gift adds to the successful
momentum of Campaign McGill: History in the Making, which has
surpassed $574 million through gifts of all sizes from more than
78,000 individual donors around the globe. “Thanks to leaders such
as Arnold Steinberg, Campaign McGill is surging forward,” said Marc
Weinstein, Vice-Principal (Development and Alumni Relations).
“Gifts such as these help to leverage other vital donations, which
are so essential for the University’s capacity to innovate and to
build a better tomorrow.”