Dr. William Ghali

Canada Research Chair in Health Services Research Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Health Scholar

Maintaining a healthy healthcare system in Canada

It’s one thing to maintain a healthy body but quite another to maintain a strong national healthcare system. While most health researchers investigate disease with the aim of finding a cure, Dr. William Ghali’s research at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine examines the ways in which such care and cure are delivered in Canada. Dr. Ghali researches the infrastructure of healthcare delivery with an eye to arming healthcare policy makers with the information they need to design an efficient and sustainable healthcare system for Canadians for generations to come.

Dr. Ghali investigates the efficacy and efficiency of healthcare delivery in four pressing health conditions in Canada today—diabetes, cardiac disease, cerebrovascular disease, and venous thromboembolic disease. Both cerebrovascular disease and venous thromboembolic disease can be life threatening. Often manifesting as stroke, cerebrovascular disease can lead to insufficient blood flow or abnormal bleeding in the brain, while venous thromboembolic disease involves abnormal blood clotting in the veins. These clots result in painful swelling of the limbs and, on some instances, break off and travel through the heart and to the lungs, causing pulmonary embolism.

These common diseases represent a serious threat to the quality of life of many Canadians, and can have crippling effects on the Canadian healthcare system. Improving healthcare delivery in these areas will not only directly benefit individuals suffering from these diseases but will translate into a healthier and more robust healthcare system for all Canadians.

Dr. Ghali’s research has shed light on the quality of care relating to these four diseases and provided a wealth of information on

• Trends in outcomes of care related to these conditions
• Descriptions of processes related to care for these conditions
• The equity and, in some cases, the inequity of access to care for people with these conditions (based on age, sex/gender, geographic location of residence, income level, race/ethnicity)
• Appropriateness of certain procedures to treat these conditions
• Variations of practice across regions and hospitals, and the implications of such variation on quality of care
• Economic considerations in rationing of healthcare services
• Cost impact of adverse events
• Waiting times for cardiac care

William Ghali, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary. He is also based in the University Centre for Health and Policy Studies. He holds a Government of Canada Research Chair in Health Services Research and is an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Health Scholar. He trained as a general internist (MD ‘90 - University of Calgary, FRCP(C) ‘94 - Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario) and received methodological training in health services research and epidemiology in the Health Research Unit at Boston University, where he also completed a Master’s of Public Health (MPH ‘95)

For further information, please contact Dr. William Ghali using the Email contact form or by phone at 403 210-9317