Health care in Ontario is entering a new era shaped by an aging population, higher rates of chronic disease and increasingly complex care needs. Hospitals are confronting record emergency department wait times, more patients are waiting for long-term care and home care, and structural deficits are growing, especially in rural and northern communities. These pressures risk compromising the accessibility, quality, and sustainability of care across the province.
At the same time, demographic and health trends will only amplify these challenges. By 2040, Ontario’s population is expected to grow by nearly 36 per cent, with the largest increase among adults aged 65 and older. 3.1 million people will be living with major illness and one in four adults over 30 will need significant hospital care, according to the Projected Patterns of Illness in Ontario study, released last year by the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Ontario Hospital Association.
Ontario’s health system is already stretched to its limits and the pressure is mounting. Now is the time to reimagine a health system that is equipped to meet future demand — because yesterday’s solutions can’t solve the challenges of tomorrow.
Innovation is not optional. It’s the only path forward if we want to build a resilient, high-performing health system for generations to come.
Across the province, hospitals are leading this work with bold vision and innovative thinking. To deliver the solutions our health system needs, they are designing new models of care, smarter use of data and technology, and stronger collaboration across the sector.
From Ontario’s urban cities to small rural communities, hospitals are working to streamline operations, enhance patient care, and accelerate decision-making, all while ensuring that new technologies are adopted responsibly and ethically.
The broad range of innovations emerging across the hospital sector can be categorized into four key areas that hold great potential for sector-wide transformation:
1. Digital innovation such as virtual care, AI-enabled diagnostics, and remote monitoring:
At Sunnybrook, digital innovation is transforming cardiac care with the BIOTRONIK Biomonitor IV Loop Recorder, a minimally invasive implantable device. Using advanced AI algorithms, the device improves the detection and management of irregular heart rhythms for patients living with arrhythmias. This enables Sunnybrook’s care team to diagnose and treat patients earlier, helping to prevent serious health complications like stroke.
2. Workforce innovation through expanded scopes of practice, team-based care, and AI-enabled administrative tools:
An innovative team-based model designed by West Lincoln Memorial Hospital is bridging midwifery expertise with hospital workflows to enhance collaboration, support nurses and improve the flow of care. Their hospitalist midwifery program is already showing strong results with early discharge rates increasing from 25% to 43%.
3. System redesign including integrated care models, predictive analytics, and data-driven planning:
At The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), system redesign is underway through the Precision Child Health initiative, a movement to make diagnoses and treatments faster, smarter, and more precise through data and AI. Using a platform developed at SickKids, called AtriumDB, hospitals can securely train, test and deploy machine learning models across institutions without sharing patient data. The bigger goal is to create a system where hospitals can share and scale effective AI tools easily, so innovations developed at SickKids can help patients everywhere.
Currently in a silent trial phase to ensure accuracy, SickKids and CHU Sainte-Justine are using AtriumDB to test a predictive AI model that monitors children’s heart rhythms in real-time to detect a dangerous but treatable condition called JET.
4. Equity enhancements through innovative care delivery models to help close gaps in access for Indigenous, rural, and other underserved communities:
An award-winning partnership between the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority and UHN is transforming care for remote and Indigenous communities through Medly, an innovative digital tool that helps monitor heart failure patients across the region. This partnership earned the Ontario Health System Quality and Innovation Award for Improved Indigenous Health, demonstrating how innovation and equity go hand in hand in redesigning care delivery.
These are just a few examples of how hospitals continue to innovate, evolve and build a future with less disease, better treatments and improved access to care for everyone. Ontario’s hospitals understand that we cannot afford to stand still.
As the province faces unprecedented pressures, a more resilient and connected health system is taking shape, and Ontario’s hospitals are leading the way.