Catalyzing Change:
The Jim Pattison Centre for Health Systems Learning and Innovation Opens with a Focus on Health Leadership and Workforce Transformation
By Deanne (Dee) Taylor | July, 2025
The Canadian health system is at a critical turning point. As the demands on our health services intensify—from demographic shifts to rising complexity in care—so too does the need for bold, systems-level innovation. The recent opening of the Jim Pattison Centre for Health Systems Learning and Innovation (The JP Centre) marks an important new chapter in the collective effort to transform how health care is delivered, led, and sustained across British Columbia and beyond.
Co-created by the Kelowna General Hospital Foundation (KGHF) and Interior Health, with input from community partners and health system interest holders, The JP Centre is a novel platform designed to drive community-led, systems-oriented innovation. The Centre is grounded in a vision to reimagine how health systems can better serve people, families, providers, and communities through collaborative learning, leadership development, and actionable research.
But what makes The JP Centre especially relevant to the Canadian Health Workforce Network (CHWN) community is its strong emphasis on health system leadership and workforce transformation as levers for change.
“We cannot achieve meaningful health system transformation without considering the people who lead and deliver care. The Centre is about rethinking how we support health leaders and health workers—not just with tools and training, but by creating the conditions for real innovation to take root,” says Dr. Deanne Taylor, Founding Executive Director of the Centre, Senior Research Advisor of the Canadian Health Leadership Network (CHLNet) and Scientific Director of the Rural Coordination Centre of BC.
A Mandate Built Around People and Systems
At the heart of the Centre’s mandate is a commitment to strengthening the health workforce by building the capabilities, connections, and courage needed to lead change in complex environments. The Centre works at the intersection of leadership development, practice-based learning, and system redesign.
In doing so, the Centre recognizes the centrality of health human resources in achieving a sustainable, high-performing health system. Rather than treating workforce challenges as downstream issues, The JP Centre positions HHR as a driver of systems transformation—a perspective that resonates with CHWN’s own mission.
An Invitation to Collaborate
The opening of The JP Centre comes at a time when health systems across Canada are grappling with workforce burnout, recruitment and retention crises, and increasing calls for new models of care. Yet it also comes with a renewed sense of possibility.
“There is a growing recognition that we must do things differently—and that means listening differently, learning differently, and leading differently,” says Dr. Taylor. “The JP Centre is both a space and a movement to support that shift.”
CHWN members—researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and educators—are invited to engage with the Centre’s evolving work, contribute to its learning agenda, and explore opportunities to scale promising innovations across jurisdictions.