Achievements


Health Law and Policy

The rapid pace of scientific discovery in many areas of health care, coupled with the severe measures taken to contain costs, has created a changing landscape in health care that challenges traditional legal approaches to managing the system.

Law is integral to some very specific aspects of the health care system. It governs relationships between providers and consumers of health care, regulates funding and accessibility, and shapes the research environment that creates health products, technologies, and services. It also establishes and monitors the institutions that deliver health care services.

The members of the Health Law and Policy Group have earned international reputations as leaders in the study of health law. Tim Caulfield, a highly respected academic whose work in the areas of health policy and genetic research are widely published, has served as research director of the Alberta Health Law Institute and was named a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy.

Much of the research for which members of the Group have received recognition concerns genetics and biotechnology. Members of the collaborative group have participated in regional, national, and international policy development. They have been invited to present their work to government and academic meetings throughout the world, including Japan, France, Italy, the UK, and the United States. They have published numerous leading monographs and articles in peer-reviewed publications and have been commissioned to write research and position papers for the World Health Organization, Industry Canada, Health Canada, and the Canadian Genome Analysis and Technology Program. Members are also closely involved in the analysis of health reform issues in Canada.

The collaborative team have written or edited the five leading Canadian textbooks on health law. Two of Canada's leading health law journals are published in the Faculty of Law, including the only peer-reviewed health law journal in Canada.

The Group has ties to researchers throughout the world and has been involved in projects with universities or research institutes in the US and the UK, as well as in Canada.

Canada's largest drug store chain of companies, Edmonton-based Katz Group, and the Government of Alberta announced October 6, 2006 that they are each donating $7 million to the University of Alberta. The Faculty of Law is pleased that of the total $14 million investment, $2 million have been allocated to the establishment of the new Katz Group Chair in Health Law, a unique position within the Faculty of Law that will provide interdisciplinary leadership in the health law field. By offering interdisciplinary training in health law, the Katz Group Chair will provide an important link between the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.



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