Canada urged to back health-care developed solutions for innovation leadership

Canada can be a leader in health innovation if it supports solutions that are developed within the health care environment, argues Dr. Muhammad Mamdani in a commentary published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

He envisions supporting not only clinicians to innovate, but also health care organizations and the larger health system.

“Ideally, health care systems will evolve into living laboratories that enable clinician- and patient-driven solutions supported by health care organizations as well as business and health care system leaders. This is not a new proposition; in 2015, an advisory panel on health care innovation previously advocated for this very concept in Canada,” writes Dr. Mamdani, director of the Temerty Center for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM) at the University of Toronto and vice president of Data Science and Advanced Analytics at Unity Health Toronto, who is also appointed at the Vector Institute and ICES Central, Toronto, Ontario.

Real health care problems should be solved in real health care environments. Unfortunately, many health care solutions are created by the private sector in artificial environments, rather than real-world health care environments. Most health care start-ups fail because they tackle the wrong clinical problem, they lack interaction with clinical environments, and they lack access to real-world data.

Canada must reframe its approach to funding health research and commercialization. The country invests more than $1 billion in health research, but most initiatives do not focus on clinical uses, and we spend hundreds of millions more on health care incubators and start-ups that are largely disconnected from the health care ecosystem. It’s no wonder more than 90% of health start-ups ultimately fail. Ensuring these initiatives and enterprises are aligned with health care organizations and clinical applications is critical.

“Bringing together relevant key partners to drive high-impact health innovation in a sustainable, cost-effective manner will not be easy but it will be worth the effort to make it happen. Elbows up; it is time Canada realizes its potential to be a leader in health innovation,” concludes Dr. Mamdani.