Date: September 5, 2007 (Wednesday)
Time: 12:30 – 14:00 (sandwich lunch from 12:30 –12:45; seminar begins at 12:45)
Venue: Mrs Chen Yang Foo Oi Telemedicine Centre, 2/F, William MW Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Abstract:
Canada and the United States share a common border yet they have chosen very different approaches to financing and organizing health care. Canada has a single-payer universal health care system with a more conservative approach to adoption of new technology whereas the United States relies on a mixture of private insurance (for under 65) and publicly (for over 65) funded health care, with a strong emphasis on rapid adoption of new technology. In this presentation, Dr. Tu will discuss differences between the Canadian and the American health care systems, and how this translates into differences in how patients with heart disease are cared for in the two systems and their resulting outcomes. He will draw upon several studies that he has co-authored comparing cardiac care in the two countries.

1. TU JV, Pashos CL, Naylor CD, Chen E, Normand SL, Newhouse JP, McNeil BJ. Use of cardiac procedures and outcomes in elderly patients with myocardial infarction in the United States and Canada. N Engl J Med 336:1500-1555, 1997
2. TU JV, Naylor CD, Kumar D, DeBuono BA, McNeil BJ, Hannan EL. and the Steering Committee of the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario. Coronary artery bypass graft surgery in Ontario and New York State: which rate is right? Ann Intern Med 126:13-19, 1997.
3. Ko DT, TU JV, Masoudi FA, Wang Y, Havranek, EP, Rathore SS, Newman AM, Donovan LR, Lee DS, Foody JM MD, Krumholz HM. Quality of care and outcomes of heart failure patients hospitalized in the United States and Canada. Arch Intern Med; 165:2486-2492, 2005.
4. Ko DT, Krumholz HM, Wang Y, Foody JM, Masoudi FA, Havranek EP, You JJ, Alter DA, Stukel TA, Newman AM, TU JV. Regional differences in process of care and outcomes for older acute myocardial infarction patients in the United States and Ontario, Canada. Circulation 115(2):196-203 2007.

Bio-sketch:
Dr Tu holds a Doctor of Medicine degree (awarded in 1988) from the University of Western Ontario, a Master of Science degree in Clinical Epidemiology (awarded in 1993) from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Health Policy (awarded in 1996) from Harvard University.  He began his academic career in 1996.  He is currently a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto and is the head of the Heart and Stroke research program at ICES.  In addition, he holds a Canada Research Chair in Health Services Research Tier I and was recently promoted in 2004 to Professor of Medicine, Public Health Sciences, and Health Policy, Management & Evaluation at the University of Toronto.  He is also an attending physician in the Divisions of Cardiology and General Internal Medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC).

Dr Tu is an internationally-recognized health services researcher, who has published over 140 peer-reviewed journal articles, including articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Circulation and other leading general internal medicine and subspecialty journals.  He has held several million dollars in peer-reviewed grants as a principal investigator from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation, and other funding agencies.  He is the team leader of the Canadian Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Team (CCORT), a group of over 30 of Canada’s leading cardiac outcomes researchers, who are conducting a number of innovative projects including the development of the first Canadian Cardiovascular Atlas.  He has served as a scientific advisor to the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario on cardiac health policy-related issues for over a decade, and also is chair of the publication committee of the Registry of the Canadian Stroke Network.

Dr Tu supervises students at all levels of training from medical students to postdoctoral fellows, and has been invited to present lectures at medical research meetings in Canada, the United States, Japan, and Europe.  His academic honours included the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine Young Investigator Award, and the Allan Bruce Robertson Young Investigator Award in 2001, and a Harkness Associate Award from the Commonwealth Fund in New York in 2003.

Dr Tu’s key research interests are:

• Quality of acute myocardial infarction/congestive heart failure care
• Rates, waits, and outcomes of patients undergoing cardiac procedures
• Quality of care in stroke/carotid surgery
• Effectiveness of health care report cards for improving care
• International comparisons of health care systems

Dr Tu has published over 160 peer-reviewed journal articles including the following:

• TU JV, Ghali WA, Pilote L, Brien S. [eds.] CCORT Canadian Cardiovascular Atlas. Pulsus Group Inc. and Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, 2006
• TU, JV, Willison DJ, Silver FL, Fang J, Richards J, Laupacis A, and Kapral M, for the Investigators in the Registry of the Canadian Stroke Network. Impracticability of informed consent in the Registry of the Canadian Stroke Network. N Engl J Med 350:1414-1421, 2004.
• TU JV, Hannan EL, Anderson GM, Iron K, Wu K, Vranizan K, Popp AJ, Grumbach K: The fall and rise of carotid endarterectomy in the United States and Canada. N Engl J Med 1998;339:1441-1447.
• TU JV, Pashos CL, Naylor CD, Chen E, Normand S-L, Newhouse JP, McNeil BJ. Use of cardiac procedures and outcomes in elderly patients with myocardial infarction in the United States and Canada. N Eng J of Med 1997;336:1500-1505.
• Lee DS, Austin PC, Rouleau JL, Liu PP, Naimark D, TU JV. Predicting mortality among patients hospitalized for heart failure: derivation and validation of a clinical model. JAMA; 290:2581-7, 2003.

Registration:
For registration and enquiries, please call Ms Maggie Cheuk at 2819-2841 or email mhrn@hkusua.hku.hk