Healthcare in Motion: Agency, Innovation and Capacity for Change

Healthcare is under enormous pressure. But at the same time, there may be more possibilities for how we create and deliver health than ever before. So what if we spent less time talking about everything that’s wrong with healthcare—and more time asking what’s becoming possible? In this episode of Wired for Change, Amy Yee is joined by Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng and Dr. Matt Bromwich for a wide-ranging conversation about agency, innovation, prevention, technology—and what it really takes to create capacity for change in healthcare. Kwadwo brings the perspective of an ICU physician and health advocate who has increasingly turned his attention upstream: to prevention, health literacy and helping people take greater agency over their own health—with the goal of reaching people long before they ever need the ICU. Matt brings the perspective of a surgeon and innovator who has spent his career turning problems encountered in clinical practice into new technologies and solutions. As an inventor and entrepreneur, he has also confronted the much harder challenge of getting good ideas adopted, scaled and into the hands of the people who can benefit from them. Together, they explore some big questions: Where does healthcare actually begin? If we designed healthcare today, knowing what we know now and with the technology now available to us, would we build the same system? Why do proven innovations struggle to spread? How do we create urgency without making everything urgent? What role should AI play in giving patients and clinicians greater agency? And perhaps most importantly: if we already have many of the ideas and tools we need, how do we create the capacity to actually change? The result is a candid, sometimes provocative and ultimately optimistic conversation about moving healthcare forward—not through one enormous transformation, but through better incentives, greater agency, thoughtful innovation and the willingness to act. ABOUT THE GUESTS Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng is an ICU physician, health advocate, author and founder of the Resource Optimization Network. His work increasingly focuses on prevention, education and empowering people to take greater control of their health. His latest book, The Opportunities in Healthcare: Redesigning Our Medical Systems in the Age of AI, Prevention, and Courageous Leadership, looks beyond what is broken to explore what we can do now to create a healthier future. https://drkwadwo.ca/ 📘 Learn more about The Opportunities in Healthcare: https://drkwadwo.ca/books Dr. Matthew Bromwich is a surgeon and medical innovator specializing in pediatric otolaryngology at CHEO, as well as an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, inventor, entrepreneur and Chief Executive Officer of CORE Innovation. His work has focused on translating problems encountered in clinical practice into new technologies and helping move healthcare innovation from invention to adoption. 💡 Learn more about CORE Innovation: https://coreinnovation.ca/about/ CHAPTERS 00:00 – Healthcare under pressure—and full of possibility 01:00 – Meet Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng and Dr. Matt Bromwich 04:00 – From treating illness to preventing it 08:00 – Scaling impact beyond the doctor-patient relationship 15:00 – Great ideas aren’t enough: the challenge of adoption 19:00 – When is change worth the effort? 25:00 – Access, navigation and the changing role of the patient 31:00 – Where does healthcare actually begin? 45:00 – If we designed healthcare today, what would we do differently? 54:00 – What can we learn from healthcare systems doing things differently? 58:00 – What has to change for innovation to spread? 1:05:00 – Culture, risk and why organizations resist change 1:13:00 – Leadership, identity and the human side of change 1:21:00 – Do patients have more agency than they think? 1:26:00 – Creating capacity for change 1:33:00 – What Kwadwo and Matt are building next If this conversation gave you a different way of thinking about healthcare—or change itself—subscribe to Wired for Change for more conversations with people challenging assumptions, building new possibilities and doing the hard work of turning ideas into impact.