Scaling What Works: Advancing Healthcare Excellence Across Canada
Time & Location
Jun 09, 2026, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Toronto, ON
About the event
Canada’s healthcare system is at an inflection point. Across the country, people are already improving care in practical, meaningful ways. The challenge now is not a shortage of good ideas, but whether those ideas can spread and scale to deliver better access, better experiences, and better outcomes for more people. As pressures intensify, Canada’s ability to learn faster and work together across the system will increasingly determine whether safe, high-quality care can be sustained.
In this Economic Club of Canada discussion hosted by Healthcare Excellence Canada, we will convene leaders and partners from across the health system to explore what it takes to accelerate improvement at scale. Drawing on evidence from high-performing systems and examples already underway across Canada, the conversation will focus on how people-centred approaches, supported teams, and the right policy and system conditions enable continuous improvement.
Featuring a keynote from Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, CEO of HEC, the session will highlight how these principles are already being applied across the country to improve access to care, support aging in place, and enable care to be delivered closer to home. Panelists will examine how collaboration, innovation, and disciplined learning can help Canada move from pockets of excellence to system-wide impact and deliver sustainable, high-quality care for Canadians. Speakers Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, President and CEO, Healthcare Excellence Canada (Keynote Address, Moderator)
Mohit Arora, Patient Advocate and Strategy Lead, Full Culture
Dr. Kate Mulligan, Founding Scientific Director, Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing
Stephen Samis, President, Samis Health Policy Consulting Inc.
*The views expressed on the Economic Club of Canada platform are not that of the Economic Club or its affiliates but of the speakers alone and the organizations they represent.*
Explore the Conversation
Watch the Recording
Listen to the Audio
Key Takeaways
Trust and meaningful patient partnership: Panelists emphasized that health care “moves at the speed of trust,” arguing for genuine collaboration with patients and communities from the outset rather than relying on token input or top‑down decisions.
Social prescribing and community-based care: The discussion highlighted social prescribing as a practical way to connect people to community supports, improve well‑being, and generate social and economic returns when adapted and scaled to local strengths and context.
System and policy conditions for scale: Speakers underscored the role of pan‑Canadian organizations, intergovernmental and cross‑government collaboration, and learning health/policy systems in adapting proven innovations to local realities .
To read further and explore the full insights from this event, download the complete Key Takeaways document below.