HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27927
Lara Gautier, Géraldine Layani
{"title":"Bridging the Gap in Social Prescribing: \"Lived Territories\" as Community Pivots for Proximity-Based Health Systems.","authors":"Lara Gautier, Géraldine Layani","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27927","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27927","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mulligan's paper makes an important and persuasive case that social prescribing should be understood as strategic infrastructure rather than as a marginal program. However, for that claim to hold in practice, the argument needs to be more clearly grounded in three operational conditions. The first one is that community action must be recognized upstream of healthcare access. Secondly, primary care must be repositioned as a local clinical infrastructure responsible for a population. Finally, the model requires an explicit territorial architecture of governance, financing and accountability.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"49-55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121015","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27933
Sara Allin, Audrey Laporte
{"title":"Social Prescribing as a Catalyst for System Transformation.","authors":"Sara Allin, Audrey Laporte","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27933","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Rising social, health and healthcare challenges in Canada signal a need for a paradigm shift. This issue centres on the case for social prescribing - connecting patients to community resources via \"link workers\" - as strategic infrastructure for improved population health. The papers in this issue lay out a vision for the future, building on this social prescribing model, and offer implementation lessons, such as prioritizing high-complexity clients and maintaining an equity focus. They also raise some important cautions, such as the need to maintain a strong welfare state, to avoid narrow National Health Service-style implementation and emphasize the need to ensure that community organizations are partners, not just referral endpoints.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"5-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27930
Sandi Pelly, Liv Mendelsohn
{"title":"From Innovation to Infrastructure: Embedding Social Prescribing in Canada's Care System.","authors":"Sandi Pelly, Liv Mendelsohn","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27930","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27930","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social prescribing connects people to community-based supports that address the social determinants of health before crisis becomes the entry point to care. More than a service innovation, it is a systems-change strategy that challenges the assumption that families and communities can provide care indefinitely without support. Drawing on the experience of Waltons Trust and the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence, which was founded by the Azrieli Foundation, this paper explores how philanthropy can test, evaluate and scale promising approaches while catalyzing sustainable public investment. The goal is to embed social prescribing within Canada's care system within five years, with philanthropy building the bridge and government sustaining it.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"31-35"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27929
Seth A Berkowitz
{"title":"Social Prescribing and the Welfare State.","authors":"Seth A Berkowitz","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27929","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Current public policy does not create the conditions people need to be healthy. In this context, social prescribing, which identifies unmet needs in clinical care and links individuals to community-based resources that help meet those needs, can help mitigate the health consequences of poor public policy. This is important, and social prescribing programs should be expanded. However, social prescribing does not fundamentally reconfigure the power relations and distributive institutions that create the problems in the first place. On the other hand, the welfare state, by publicly providing necessary goods and services that are not well allocated by markets and distributing income to those unable to engage in paid labour, can do this. Thus, the welfare state has a central role in improving population health, and efforts to enhance the welfare state should occur alongside efforts to boost social prescribing.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"36-42"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27926
Kate Mulligan
{"title":"Toward Community Health 2067: Social Prescribing, Learning Systems and the Making of an Enabling State.","authors":"Kate Mulligan","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27926","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27926","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Responding to commentaries on \"Social Prescribing as Strategic Infrastructure,\" this rejoinder builds on reflections about public provision, community capacity, equity, relational labour and the limits of clinically led referral models. It argues that these contributions sharpen and extend the central proposition: social prescribing can connect local experience to institutional learning, financing and system change. The paper reframes social prescribing across intervention, infrastructure and transformation, and situates it within a learning health policy system and an enabling state that builds upon, rather than replaces, the welfare state. It concludes with a locally adaptable, systemwide agenda for Community Health 2067.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"57-62"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27932
Kate Mulligan
{"title":"Social Prescribing as Strategic Infrastructure: Unlocking Community Capacity for Sustainable Healthcare When Institutions Reach Their Limits.","authors":"Kate Mulligan","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27932","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Canada's healthcare system is approaching structural limits: nearly $400 billion in annual spending, while nearly one in five Canadians is without a regular healthcare provider, emergency departments overflow and health inequities persist that universal coverage alone cannot resolve. This paper argues that social prescribing, a structured referral system connecting people to community resources through trained link workers, offers not merely an additional program but a paradigm shift. By making visible the economic and social value of community-based health work, social prescribing functions as a strategic catalyst for an enabling state model of healthcare: one that redirects public investment toward the community infrastructure where health is actually produced. This paper traces Canada's health system through three historical paradigms: the nation state, the welfare state and the emerging enabling state. It shows how social prescribing bridges the transition, with modelling suggesting a potential return of $4.43 for every dollar invested while building resilience against the compounding disruptions of climate change, trade instability and geopolitical uncertainty. Drawing on Canadian pilots, international evidence and cross-sectoral economic analysis, the paper offers recommendations for community organizations and governments to recognize, resource and protect the resilient future that Canadian communities are already building.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"10-23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27928
Kerryn Husk, Chris Dayson
{"title":"Social Prescribing as Strategic Infrastructure: An English Perspective.","authors":"Kerryn Husk, Chris Dayson","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27928","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We agree with Mulligan's central argument but want to offer some notes of caution from the English context. We note that social prescribing is an idea rather than a coherent intervention, and different interpretations can lead to differing models, outputs and outcomes. We argue that a linear model to transit people from primary care to the community is flawed and narrow and instead pose a two-pillar approach where social prescribing is the link between personalized care and community development. It is, we think, only by robustly defending this model throughout scaling that pitfalls can be avoided and Mulligan's vision achieved.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"43-48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2026-06-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2026.27931
Gary C Bloch, Nassim Vahidi-Williams
{"title":"Equity-Driven and Community Empowerment-Focused Social Prescribing: Lessons From the Front Lines.","authors":"Gary C Bloch, Nassim Vahidi-Williams","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2026.27931","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12927/hcpap.2026.27931","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social prescribing offers an individual- and community-centred approach to addressing social isolation and a broader range of social risks to health and health inequities. The emerging Canadian model of social prescribing puts equity and community at its centre. To support the critical development of such programs, we offer lessons from three key areas of implementation: shifting the culture of health teams, instilling a core focus on equity and building practical support for health teams ready to engage in this work. The wider development of equity- and community-focused social prescribing programs holds the potential to expand Canadian healthcare teams' capacity to address powerful social risks to health.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 4","pages":"25-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149121208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2025.27761
Robin Urquhart
{"title":"Ten Years of Progress in Patient Engagement: A Foundation Built, But Time to Deliver.","authors":"Robin Urquhart","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2025.27761","DOIUrl":"10.12927/hcpap.2025.27761","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>It has been 10 years since the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation Report (Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation 2015) recommended patient engagement and empowerment as one action to enhance the quality and sustainability of healthcare in Canada. Since that time, patient engagement has become internationally recognized as a key component toward improving healthcare systems. In this article, the author highlights how organizations across Canada have engaged patients in healthcare and health research planning, design and governance activities, and discusses three key areas wherein improvements are needed to leverage the potential of patient engagement: leadership and infrastructure, diversity and representation and power structures/imbalances.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 3","pages":"43-50"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146069452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HealthcarePapersPub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.12927/hcpap.2025.27764
Braden J Manns, Stephanie Hastings, Alan J Forster
{"title":"Ten-Year Anniversary of the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation Report: Assessing Progress and What Is Left to Do.","authors":"Braden J Manns, Stephanie Hastings, Alan J Forster","doi":"10.12927/hcpap.2025.27764","DOIUrl":"10.12927/hcpap.2025.27764","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose created the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation, asking them to identify five priority innovation areas that would improve accessibility, quality of care and health spending. Their 2015 report found fragmented systems, a lack of collaboration across jurisdictions to share learnings and best practices and undercapitalized technological advancements, among other barriers to spreading successful innovation. Ten years later, we review the report's main recommendations and examine progress in the key areas identified for action. Progress on many of the recommendations is lacking. The panel's main recommendations - creation of a $1-billion innovation fund to enable sustainable changes in care delivery and a national healthcare innovation agency - have gone largely unanswered. We illustrate the need for an innovation agency that spans all provinces using several examples, including ones where digital health innovation is required, including central intake and triage for specialist referrals. We discuss the conditions needed for successful implementation: An interoperable digital solution, changes to models of care and funding flows, leadership and a patient-centred culture within the health system. We also highlight how local innovation hubs enable the development of new technologies and identify the key local, provincial and national factors for success that should be considered for a new federal agency.</p>","PeriodicalId":101342,"journal":{"name":"HealthcarePapers","volume":"23 3","pages":"9-24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146069483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}