Beyond Silos and Perpetual Pilots: Data as the Catalyst for Canada’s Healthcare Innovation Revolution

Progress on the report of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation (2015) for Canada is limited. While Manns et al. (2025) advocate for a national innovation agency and fund, their analysis underemphasizes the catalytic role of health data infrastructure as the foundation of an innovation engine. Consequently, Canada has not cultivated the strategic infrastructure necessary to enable spread and scale. This commentary argues that pan-Canadian health data ecosystems are foundational to scaling innovation. By prioritizing data liquidity, real-world evidence generation and data stewardship, Canada can transform its "perpetual pilot projects" into a learning health system that accelerates the scale and spread of value-based innovations.