Building a Future-Ready Healthcare System: Three Priorities from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and Pfizer Canada
A strong healthcare system does more than support the health and well-being of individuals. It helps build healthier communities and sustain a productive workforce and a competitive economy. Healthcare employs approximately three million Canadians,i and generates more than $170 billion in annual real GDP.ii As healthcare needs grow more complex and demand for care grows, strengthening our health systems is also an investment in our long-term prosperity.
Ontario has made meaningful progress in modernizing healthcare, including connecting more than 700,000 people to primary care through recent initiatives. However, nearly two million Ontarians still lack a regular primary-care provider,iii and persistent gaps in access, workforce pressures, and fragmented systems continue to challenge the province’s ability to deliver timely, coordinated care.
Earlier this year, Pfizer Canada partnered with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) to convene a roundtable on reimagining healthcare, with the goal of turning ideas into action. Insights from the discussion and perspectives from across the health, business and innovation sectors helped inform the new policy brief, Advancing Future-Ready Healthcare in Ontario, offering practical recommendations to improve patient outcomes, strengthen health system performance, and support Ontario's long-term economic goals.
Three Priorities for Modernizing Ontario’s Healthcare System
The brief identifies three priorities that can help Ontario move beyond incremental improvements toward a more connected, innovative and sustainable approach to healthcare:
1. Enabling secure sharing of health data to improve care
Health information is most valuable when it can be securely and seamlessly shared among patients, healthcare professionals and care settings. However, fragmented digital systems can make it difficult to access a complete picture of a patient’s health, coordinate care and use information to inform decisions.
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, while nine in 10 healthcare providers believe securely sharing electronic health information would improve patient safety and quality of care, only four in 10 can do so.iv
The brief calls for a coordinated approach to health data interoperability, supported by common standards, clear accountability and privacy-by-design safeguards. By enabling trusted information sharing, Ontario can strengthen care coordination, support public health surveillance, reduce administrative burdens and help healthcare professionals make more informed decisions.
Interoperability is not simply about collecting more data or digitizing existing processes. It is about making the right information available to the right people at the right time, while protecting patient privacy and supporting better outcomes.
2. Making healthcare procurement about value, not price alone
Procurement decisions have a significant influence on patient access to medicines, vaccines and medical technologies, as well as on the resilience and sustainability of the healthcare system.
Traditional procurement approaches often place considerable emphasis on upfront expenditures. While price is an important consideration, it does not always capture the full value a healthcare product or technology can deliver – including its impact on patient outcomes, quality of life, supply reliability and long-term system costs.
The brief recommends broader adoption of value-based procurement, which considers these factors alongside price. It also highlights the importance of predictable procurement processes, stronger collaboration between purchasers and suppliers, and approaches that encourage innovation while supporting reliable access to essential health products.
A more comprehensive view of value can help support procurement decisions that improve patient outcomes, strengthen supply-chain resilience and ensure healthcare investments deliver lasting benefits.
3. Bringing equitable care closer to home
Where and how people receive care can have a significant impact on their health outcomes and overall experience. The brief highlights opportunities to expand team-based and community-based care models that bring services closer to patients and make better use of the expertise of healthcare professionals. This includes supporting pharmacists, nurse practitioners and other regulated healthcare professionals to practise to their full scope, alongside investments in virtual care, remote monitoring and other technology-enabled services.
These approaches can help improve access to preventive, diagnostic, and ongoing care, while easing pressure on hospitals and emergency departments. However, expanding care models alone is not enough. Sustainable funding, appropriate compensation, workforce retention and practical implementation support are also essential to making these models work over the long term.
Equitable access means ensuring people can receive appropriate care when and where they need it, including those living in rural, remote, northern and Indigenous communities, where geographic barriers and limited service availability can create additional challenges.
Progress will require coordinated planning and collaboration across sectors. At Pfizer Canada, we are proud to continue our partnership with the OCC and support continued dialogue on strengthening healthcare delivery. Modernizing our healthcare system is an opportunity to improve care for patients and communities, and to help build a more resilient, and sustainable future for Ontario.
Ontario’s healthcare system has an opportunity to lead by example, demonstrating how better data sharing, value-based procurement and more equitable, community-based care can strengthen health outcomes and system sustainability. While this report focuses on Ontario, the challenges it addresses are shared by jurisdictions across Canada. The priorities outlined in Advancing Future-Ready Healthcare in Ontario offer a starting point for broader conversations about how governments, healthcare providers, industry and other partners can work together to build a more innovative, resilient and future-ready healthcare system for all Canadians.
We invite you to read the full policy brief here: Advancing Future-Ready Health Care in Ontario | OCC.
References
[i] Government of Canada. Labour force characteristics by industry, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality (x1,000) Available at https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1410002201 Accessed October 2026.
[ii] Government of Canada. Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by industry, annual average (x 1,000,000) Available at
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3610043403 Accessed October 2026.
[iii] Ontario Ministry of Health. Technical Briefing. Ontario’s primary Care Action Plan. Available at https://www.ontario.ca/files/2026-01/moh-pcat-primary-care-action-plan-1-year-progress-update-en-2026-01-12.pdf ; https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontarios-primary-care-action-plan-january-2025 Accessed October 2026.
[iv] The Connected Care for Canadians Act: an important step toward interoperability of health data, David El Sabawy Joshua Feldman and Andrew D. Pinto, CMAJ December 09, 2024 196 (42) E1385-E1388; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.241123