A5:    Measuring the health of a nation

Richard C Alvarez (Dick) is the President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Dick has had a distinguished career in the Canadian health sector both at national and provincial levels. He has served as Chairman of the National Health Information Council (NHIC), as the Chairman of the Interim Board of the CIHI and was a Trustee of Alberta Blue Cross. Prior to joining the Institute, Dick was an Assistant Deputy Minister with Alberta Health.

Currently Dick is the chair of a major public/private Partnership for development of Health Informatics and Telematics in Canada; the chair of Canada’s representation to the newly formed technical committee on Health Informatics at the International Standards Organization (ISO) and a member of the Board on Healnet.

He is a frequent speaker and facilitator at national and international conferences on healthcare, discussing the challenges facing the health system in Canada and the role of information and information technology within a reformed health system.