Canada’s healthcare system is ailing. Is technology part of the cure?
By Nicole Laidler
Illustration by Greg Mably
Canada’s healthcare system is at a pivotal moment. As it adapts to growing demands and new realities, digital innovation and bold leadership are driving meaningful change. Across the country, Ivey alumni are leading this transformation by reimagining how care is delivered, managed, and sustained through technology and data-driven solutions.
If the Canadian healthcare system was a patient, it might be in critical condition. The system is buckling under a shortage of family doctors, long wait times for diagnostics and surgeries, overcrowded emergency rooms, burnt-out healthcare workers, and an aging population – and it’s not a problem that money alone can solve.
Canada already spends more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than almost any other high-income country with a universal healthcare system. A 2025 Fraser Institute report ranked Canada 3rd out of 31 countries for spending, but only 27th for the availability of doctors and 25th for the availability of hospital beds.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated the cracks in the system, but it may also have revealed a path forward.
A catalyst for change
Duska Kennedy, HBA ’00, MBA ’05, is Vice President, Strategy, Digital Health and Chief Digital Officer at Toronto’s North York General (NYG). She joined the organization in June 2020, while NYG was in full pandemic mode.
Kennedy has over 20 years of healthcare information management and information technology experience. She says that when it comes to adopting new technologies, the healthcare sector has historically lagged behind other industries.
“It was just accepted that healthcare was going to be more paper-based, and less automated,” says Kennedy. The pandemic created an imperative for change and demonstrated that the system can indeed do things differently.
“The pandemic made us realize that not all care needs to happen in the hospital,” she notes. Like healthcare organizations across Canada, NYG pivoted to deliver care virtually when appropriate. The hospital also launched a patient portal so that people could access their COVID test results online.
Today, it remains a key part of NYG’s strategy to harness new technologies to deliver seamless, connected care.
Currently undergoing an upgrade, the next generation patient portal will empower patients to manage appointments, message their care team, stay on top of tests and care plans, and interact with an AI-enabled chatbot that can answer common questions about hospital care.
“These kinds of digital tools can help us deliver more convenient, personalized care that patients are advocating for,” she says.
Duska Kennedy, HBA ’00, MBA ’05
“As a leader, you really have to put yourself in their shoes. You have to lead with clarity. It’s not about the technology we are implementing; it’s about the problem it is going to fix.”
Lauren Cipriano, HBA ’05
“Virtual care can facilitate access to specialists in remote or underserviced communities. Maybe patients still have to travel to an urban centre for part of their care, but that specialist can now liaise virtually with a local care team so that ongoing care can be provided in the home community.”
Virtual care is here to stay
While the reliance on virtual healthcare has waned since the pandemic, the use of technology to facilitate access to care is here to stay.
In a country as large as Canada, virtual care can serve as a geographic equalizer, says Lauren Cipriano, HBA '05, a Professor in Management Science at the Ivey Business School where she is the Canada Research Chair in Healthcare Analytics, Management, and Policy.
“Virtual care can facilitate access to specialists in remote or underserviced communities,” she says. “Maybe patients still have to travel to an urban centre for part of their care, but that specialist can now liaise virtually with a local care team so that ongoing care can be provided in the home community.”
Many people are also turning to telemedicine to access primary care.
Roughly 6.5 million Canadians do not have a family doctor. And of those who do have a regular healthcare provider, nearly one-quarter cannot schedule a same-day or next-day appointment, with 1 in 20 waiting a month or more.
“London has a larger share of residents without a family doctor than the Ontario average – about 20 per cent higher,” says Cipriano. “When so many residents are unattached, it undermines continuity of care, worsens chronic disease outcomes, strains emergency departments, and fuels burnout among the providers who are trying to close the gaps.”
Healthcare access has become a pressing recruitment issue, and Cipriano says it’s no surprise that employers are turning to private sector virtual care options to help address the need.
Swati Matta, MBA ’16, has worked in the health-tech industry for almost 20 years, holding various leadership roles at University Health Network, League, TELUS, and Dialogue Health Technologies Inc (Dialogue).
“With lack of access to clinicians and timely care, people are left to navigate their health on their own. Virtual care solutions are helping fill the gaps, giving people everywhere access to quality care they need and deserve,” she says.
In 2021, Matta founded Koble, a first-of-its-kind digital health and wellness platform for new and expecting parents. The app provided access to a team of health experts, personalized coaching, live and on-demand learning, as well as an online community.
Koble was purchased by Dialogue in 2024, with Matta joining as Head of Women’s Health.
Dialogue is Canada’s largest employer-funded virtual healthcare and wellness platform. It supports around 10 million Canadians through its Integrated Health Platform™, providing on-demand access for organizations and their employees or members.
Thanks to Dialogue’s national network of multidisciplinary practitioners, users can book a virtual appointment within 24 hours. Each appointment is followed with a care plan, and if the issue cannot be resolved virtually, Dialogue provides a referral to the nearest suitable clinic.
This year, Matta is looking forward to growing Dialogue’s women’s and family health offerings, starting with comprehensive perimenopause and menopause care. With women making up almost half of the Canadian workforce, their wellbeing impacts productivity, absenteeism, and retention, and Matta says employers are taking note.
“The last time Canada’s National Women’s Health Strategy was updated was in 1999. A lot has changed in those 25 years, and frankly our healthcare system has not kept up,” she says.
Pete MacLeod, MBA ’18
“We’ve developed a comprehensive digital patient experience... ensuring that every person who comes to us has a smooth, dignified path to the care they need.”
As the co-founder and COO at PurposeMed, Pete MacLeod, MBA ’18, is – along with his team – also at the forefront of providing specialized, accessible care to underserved communities.
MacLeod launched the Calgary-based virtual care platform with his brother-in-law, Dr. Husein Moloo, in early 2020. By 2024, PurposeMed was named Canada’s second-fastest growing tech company by Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 program.
The health-tech company operates three distinct mission-driven brands.
Freddie offers prescriptions for PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis), a highly effective medication for HIV prevention, alongside other sexual health services, with a dedicated focus on the LGBTQ2S+ community. Frida specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD, and the Foria Clinic provides gender-affirming care and hormone therapy.
With an integrated pharmacy that can ship medication directly to a client’s front door, PurposeMed is able to offer a discreet and seamless healthcare experience.
“There are a lot of generic telemedicine players,” MacLeod says. “We saw that certain individuals – those already facing barriers – were being overlooked. We wanted to focus our efforts entirely on communities that needed our services and deserved specialized care. That’s why we adopted this niche approach.”
It took only 15 months for Freddie to become Canada’s largest HIV prevention service. In October 2025, it completed an expansion into all 50 American states. MacLeod says the ultimate goal is to take Freddie global.
Technology has played a key role in managing PurposeMed’s explosive growth, he says. “We’ve developed a comprehensive digital patient experience, alongside sophisticated internal tools to streamline our operations, ensuring that every person who comes to us has a smooth, dignified path to the care they need.”
AI to the administrative rescue?
Most healthcare providers now use some sort of electronic medical records (EMRs), but most systems were not developed to exchange information with others. That’s why referrals, medical records, and test results are often shared through secure electronic file transfer services, or by fax.
And in a country with thousands of independent organizations working across 13 provincial and territorial healthcare jurisdictions, there is no easy fix.
Last spring, North York General became the first hospital in Canada to migrate its electronic health record to the cloud. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure facilitates real-time updates to patient records and significantly reduces the time clinicians wait to access those records. It also offers enhanced data security and highly scalable storage, which Kennedy says will enable future integrations of AI-enhanced technologies.
NYG was also the first in Canada to use Oracle’s AI scribe tool to automatically transcribe and summarize patient-clinician conversations, giving time back to clinicians to focus on patient interactions. “The patient needs to be made aware that the recording is happening, that the data will be stored, and that it will be deleted at an appropriate time,” Kennedy notes. “AI has tremendous potential, but we do need to ensure we use it responsibly, safely, and ethically.”
Seizing the AI moment
When it comes to frontline healthcare, there is no doubt that AI holds immense promise for improving patient outcomes.
“AI is not going to take away from the amazing work that our staff, clinicians, and physicians do, but I absolutely believe that it will be a game-changer for the health sector,” says Kennedy. “If I think about my own hospital, we are using AI in our emergency department to optimize the flow of patients, and it is powering incredible advancements in the area of diagnostic imaging.”
Swati Matta, MBA ’16
“What excites me about AI, unlike the digital revolution, is that AI has primarily been a consumer-led movement. We are in an interesting place with what’s happening at a macro level around building Canada, and this momentum will transform how Canadians experience healthcare.”
Cipriano agrees that AI has the potential to improve the accuracy of some diagnostics, reduce some of the administrative burden on practitioners, improve quality control, and deliver some operational efficiency in healthcare. “But it won’t fix the core issues we face,” she says.
“Our health system remains highly fragmented, and deeply understaffed. AI can support healthcare providers and delivery organizations, but it can’t replace the human work of care or fix the foundational cracks in a system that isn’t designed to meet the complex needs of our aging population.”
Canada’s pressing healthcare labour shortage means that frontline workers are constantly operating in crisis mode, she notes. “That makes it very difficult to find the time to try new things or effectively evaluate the impact of new technologies.”
Kennedy agrees with her observation. “As a leader, you really have to put yourself in their shoes,” she says. “You have to lead with clarity. It’s not about the technology we are implementing; it’s about the problem it is going to fix.”
Matta also remains optimistic about the role AI can play in shaping the future of Canadian healthcare.
“What excites me about AI, unlike the digital revolution, is that AI has primarily been a consumer-led movement,” she says. “We are in an interesting place with what’s happening at a macro level around building Canada, and this momentum will transform how Canadians experience healthcare.”
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