Healthcare Quarterly presents Quarterly Reflections from Neil Seeman
Neil Seeman
Columnist, Healthcare Quarterly
Senior Fellow & Associate Professor, IHPME, University of Toronto
Fellow of UofT’s Massey College, Senior College, IJB, Fields, and HIVE Lab
Publisher, Sutherland House Experts
Co-founder & Editor, EPS
Neil Seeman is an author, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate. He is a Senior Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. A regular columnist for The Toronto Star and Healthcare Quarterly, he is the author of Accelerated Minds and the publisher at Sutherland House Experts. He was the 2025 recipient of the Reach Out Together Foundation’s Lifetime Mental Health Advocacy Award and is a board member of Mental Health Research Canada.
Latest Columns
Healthcare Quarterly | October 2025
Quarterly Reflections
A Manhattan Project for Canadian Healthcare?
Canada’s healthcare crises demand more than strategic planning. Drawing on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s model of rapid experimentation, this article proposes a distributed innovation engine that respects provincial jurisdiction while enabling compressed timelines, protected failure, and reallocation of existing resources to accelerate learning.
Healthcare Quarterly | July 2025
Quarterly Reflections
Talking about Declining Trust in Health Systems — and What to do About it
Neil Seeman in conversation with Dr. Anthony (Tony) Sanfilippo, author of "The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support" about his upcoming book on declining trust in the health system.
Healthcare Quarterly | May 2025
Quarterly Reflections
Our Aging Disconnect: Billions for Longevity, Pennies for Dignity
The stark contrast between massive private investment in longevity technologies and inadequate funding for basic eldercare services is explored in this article. It argues for rebalancing priorities to ensure aging innovations enhance dignity rather than creating greater health disparities among vulnerable populations.
Healthcare Quarterly | January 2025
Quarterly Reflections
Essential Readings and Continuous Learning in Healthcare Policy
Essential readings for healthcare policy reform were curated through synthesizing structured e-mail interviews with system leaders, qualitative insights and citation impact analysis. The results emphasize integration, community engagement, innovation and equity and advocates an iterative feedback loop for evolving policy knowledge.
Healthcare Quarterly | October 2025
Quarterly Reflections
The Siren Call for Business Model Innovation in Healthcare
For Canada’s healthcare innovation ecosystem to deliver high value, there must be a paradigm change to address the challenges posed by an aging population and chronic conditions. The author proposes business model innovations to improve healthcare delivery and sustainability.
Healthcare Quarterly | July 2024
Quarterly Reflections
Observing Healthcare With Mary in Her Final Weeks of Life
Neil Seeman reflects on his mother Dr. Mary V. Seeman's final weeks of life, exploring her observations on healthcare archetypes and her understanding of mothering in medicine. This account offers insights into holistic patient care, integrating technical expertise with empathy, and the importance of human connection in healthcare delivery.
Healthcare Quarterly | April 2024
Quarterly Reflections
For an Unremarkable Health System
In complex, data-driven industries, a holistic view of performance across multiple key performance indicator (KPI) categories is often more important than maximizing performance on a few select metrics. In the healthcare context, pursuing such unremarkability will maximize the health and welfare of everyone and can support quality improvement across all institutions.
Healthcare Quarterly | January 2024
Quarterly Reflections
The integration of artificial intelligence offers the promise of developing open-source frameworks and tools that incorporate social and behavioural determinants of health data, thereby fostering an empirical understanding of the causal factors behind patient complaints.
Healthcare Quarterly | October 2023
Quarterly Reflections
Intergenerational Civics Programs to Combat Structural Ageism in Canada
There is a high prevalence of structural ageism in Canada. Spending time with stigmatized groups can lead us closer to an understanding of their needs. Intergenerational civics programs promote meaningful and sustained interactions between younger and older Canadians.
Healthcare Quarterly | July 2023
Quarterly Reflections
Improving Health Systems: There Is No App for That
Few apps can lay claim to improving access to care or to presenting any other health system benefits. We need to think about healthcare apps differently in order to improve holistic, patient-centred care as a vital component of a well-integrated health system.
Healthcare Quarterly | April 2023
Quarterly Reflections
Innovations to Address Social Isolation for Elderly Canadians Aging at Home
The National Institute on Ageing (NIA) at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health (CCSMH) both emphasize the importance of seniors aging in the right place, and are exemplars in how to treat healthcare innovations as opportunities to create a sustainable high-quality health system.
Healthcare Quarterly | Janaury 2025
Quarterly Reflections
The Childhood Mental Health of One
Canada’s childhood mental healthcare system has been stressed by the pandemic. The system can be resilient if it champions the unique challenges each child faces, and if it acknowledges the deep interdependencies between mental health and schooling.
Healthcare Quarterly | October 2025
Quarterly Reflections
Toward an Integrated Strategy for Care in the Home for Frail Elders
Designing an ethical and effective national strategy for care in the home for frail elders requires understanding different stakeholder interpretations of what quality means. Any homecare strategy needs to align with acute hospital care and sub-acute rehabilitation care and, ultimately, with palliative care.