On November 25, Trillium Health Partners’ Institute for Better Health hosted its sixth Hazel McCallion Lecture in Shaping Healthier Communities. This year’s theme, Building the Future of Health Care with Patients, Families and Communities, explored how health systems can meaningfully engage people with living and lived experience to drive transformation and create better health for everyone. The event featured a thought-provoking keynote and a rich panel discussion that highlighted the power of partnership, demonstrating that the future of health care is shaped by centring the voices of patients, families, caregivers, and communities.
Dr. Francine Buchanan, Senior Manager, Patient, Family & Community Engagement, Hospital for Sick Children, the evening with the teachings of the sweetgrass braid—a reminder that a single strand is fragile on its own, but when many strands are woven together, they become strong and unbreakable. This teaching echoed throughout the keynote and panel: Meaningful change in health care happens when we braid together the wisdom of patients, families, caregivers, community partners, clinicians, and researchers. It is this collective strength that makes true learning and transformation possible.
The evening also began with a tribute to the late Hazel McCallion and Dr. Mathias Gysler, two trailblazing leaders who always centered on the needs of people and community while simultaneously striving for system change. Following this was a keynote address from Sarah Greene, MPH, a Senior Advisor and Consultant with the National Academy of Medicine and a national leader in advancing patient, family, and community engagement in learning health systems. Her presentation explored how continuous learning can strengthen health systems, improve experiences, and accelerate meaningful change.
A panel discussion followed, facilitated by Dr. Kerry Kuluski (Scientist and Dr. Mathias Gysler Research Chair in Patient and Family Centred Care, Institute for Better Health). The conversation brought together diverse perspectives from across the health system: Isra Amsdr (Interdisciplinary Artist, Writer, Disability Advocate and Health Care Designer); Angela Carter (Strategic Advisor, Roots Community Services); Bhavini Patel (Co-Chair, Caregiver Advisory Board, Institute for Better Health); Dr. Sam Sabbah (Chief of Staff, Trillium Health Partners); and Mark Weir (Executive Director, Patient Experience, Saint Elizabeth Health). Together, they explored practical approaches to partnering with communities, as well as sharing big dreams for how patients, families and caregivers can help shape a more equitable, responsive, and people-centred future for health care.
Read on for five takeaways.
1. See people wholly.
Speakers underscored that health is more than a diagnosis—it includes spiritual needs, identity, family context, employment, and community life. A people-centred future means shifting from “What’s the matter with you?” to “What matters to you?” and ensuring everyone feels seen, connected, and understood.
2. Move from frameworks to practice.
Beyond diagrams, the real work of a learning health system happens in relationships, conversations, humility, failure, and learning. The message was clear: we must practice continuous learning at the point of care and in the community. This means using data to improve care in real time; and deliberately creating the time and space to evaluate and learn.
3. Co-design must start from the ground up.
True partnership means treating lived experience as expertise and creating trauma-informed, safe spaces where patients, families, caregivers, and communities help design systems that meet people where they are. Co-design is not toolkit; it’s a relationship based on care and mutual respect.
4. Learning requires curiosity, discomfort and a willingness to fail.
Both the keynote and panel emphasized that improvement depends on acknowledging what we don’t know, resisting rigidity, and seeing failure as essential learning. Leaders can model this by creating cultures where vulnerability is a strength, and failure is embraced as a pathway to learning and improvement. We must resist the rigidity of health care and do things differently to truly create change.
5. Technology should enable connection, not replace it.
Whether through AI tools that expand access to information or data used to personalize care, technology is most powerful when it helps people focus on what humans do best: listening, partnering, and building trust. Technology can give us tools we’ve never had before, but connection must remain at the centre.