University researchers propose major reforms to cut health care costs.

Canada could slash public-health expenditures by 15% with no reduction in Canadians' health status by substituting less costly types of delivery and forms of treatment in more appropriate settings, says the recently released report of the Queen's-University of Ottawa Project on Cost-effectiveness of the Canadian Health Care System. Sustainable Health Care for Canada concludes that the system could be made more efficient by reducing the number of acute-care beds and cutting patients' length of stay in hospital. It also suggests substituting continuing care for acute care and relying less on institutionalization of the elderly and more on alternatives such as residential or community care. The report also suggests that as Canada experiments with decentralization, it may be time to look at other regulatory models for health care, including the mixed-market approach.