Netiv aims to help health system learn faster

MONTREAL – The Netiv Institute for Health Systems Thinking, a new independent nonprofit institute dedicated to strengthening how Canadian health systems learn and adapt, was launched in late February.

Developed in close partnership with CIUSSS West-Central Montreal and the Jewish General Hospital, Netiv is empowered by access to a major health network as its living lab, but it remains an independent institute with its own ambitious (and audacious) direction.

“Healthcare in Canada is increasingly complex, with patients receiving care across hospitals, clinics, community programs, and social services,” said Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg (pictured), president and CEO of CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, professor of surgery and medicine at McGill University, and founder of Netiv.

“Yet the system was largely built for a simpler era. Netiv was created to help fill this gap by advancing the capacity of health systems to learn from real-world conditions and adapt continuously.”

Netiv brings together four critical approaches to understanding how large healthcare systems behave:

• Complexity science: The study that helps health systems see themselves more clearly by identifying how patterns of interaction take shape, how effects propagate, and where learning accumulates or breaks down.
• Antifragile thinking: The idea that systems must be designed to not withstand, but to improve when exposed to stress and uncertainty.
• Responsible AI: Integrating evidence, data, and lived experience to reveal patterns and improve real-world decisions.
• Value-based healthcare: Ensuring that learning is anchored in outcomes that matter to patients, families, and care teams.

Rather than delivering prescriptive solutions or isolated projects, Netiv focuses on the structures that enable institutional intelligence, shared learning, and collective wisdom across the system.

“At Netiv, we look at how care really behaves day to day, where coordination breaks down, where fragility emerges, and where early signals point to broader risks,” said Jennifer Gutberg, scientific director of Netiv. “Our work helps redesign system structures so that foresight, learning, and value can emerge continuously.”

Through its partnership with CIUSSS West-Central Montreal and the JGH, Netiv benefits from a real-world environment, including insights into patient journeys, clinical workflows, and operational pressures. This enables applied research grounded in lived reality, while maintaining the institute’s independent governance.

Netiv will collaborate with health organizations, academic institutions, policy partners, and private-sector innovators across Canada to strengthen system-wide learning capacity.

With its distinctive partnership model and national mandate, Netiv becomes one of the first institutes in Canada, and among few worldwide, dedicated to building health systems that learn continuously and grow stronger in the face of complexity.

For more information, visit www.netivinstitute.com.