Last month, Global Public Affairs and Health Innovation Rx (led by Saurabh Popat) hosted the inaugural Future of Health Innovation Forum in Toronto.

The half-day session included over 30 Ontario-based digital health innovators, investors and health sector leaders. Participants gathered to discuss the state of play of digital health in Ontario, and how digital health innovation could be better adopted and scaled to support the government’s health system transformation efforts to provide better, faster and more empowered care for patients.

During the session, we asked participants a series of targeted questions, and also sought their input on how government can better encourage growth in our health innovation ecosystem while adopting made-in-Ontario digital technologies to drive change across the health system.

We asked:

• How can the Ontario Government utilize innovative digital health tools to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient care?
• How can digital health solutions accelerate patient access and help to tackle hallway medicine?
• How can the Ontario Government enable faster adoption and scalability of value-added digital health solutions based on existing healthcare funding?
• How can the Ontario Government enable the digital health ecosystem to drive economic growth and job creation?

The discussions resulted in practical, achievable and timely recommendations for the government, which we then captured and submitted to the provincial government as part of the provincial pre-budget consultation process.

Read a full copy of the pre-budget submission from

the participants of the Future of Health Innovation Forum

We look forward to continuing our support for Ontario’s health innovation ecosystem as they drive change and support the government’s health system transformation.

Global Public Affairs and Health Innovation Rx have partnered to help digital health innovators better navigate, engage and accelerate solutions with governments to help support the transformation of Canada’s health system and empower patients.

To learn more, please contact Andrew Retfalvi or Saurabh Popat.