The 2025 National Healthcare Business Development Conference brought together industry leaders, innovators, and change-makers from across the country for two days of strategic insights and meaningful dialogue.
With a focus on advancing growth, partnerships, and patient-centred innovation, the event offered a dynamic platform for healthcare professionals to explore cutting-edge business development practices and collaborate on the future of the sector. From energizing keynote presentations to practical case studies, the conference delivered both inspiration and actionable takeaways.
Here are two powerful sessions that tackled this head-on.
Business Development as Healthcare Reform: A Bold Case for Capacity & Growth
Matthew Lister, the Founder of Scenario Five Planning Incorporated and member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association and the Canadian College of Healthcare Leaders (CCHL), delivered a memorable presentation at the 2025 National Healthcare Business Development Conference with a strong pitch stating,
“Business development, not just policy. It can revitalize Canada’s strained health system.”
From Funding Gaps To Supply Surplus
Canada’s aging population, workforce shortages, and infrastructure backlogs are creating an unsustainable pressure cooker in healthcare. Lister argued that we must shift from managing scarcity to building surplus and to think globally.
Photo of Matthew Lister, Founder, Scenario Five Planning Incorporated
Use Case: Clinical Capacity As An Export
Other countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia) already pay for care abroad. If we grow supply in areas like diagnostics and surgery, Canada can attract international clients, just like Accreditation Canada already does.
What Business Development Should Look Like
Lister, whose focus involves collaborative governance initiatives between the private and public sectors and multi-national partnerships, outlined four core functions healthcare leaders should own:
- Vigilance: Spot unmet needs and internal assets
- Partnerships: Build the right alliances, manage expectations
- Value modeling: Quantify return and prioritize opportunities
- Prototyping: Don’t wait for perfection; launch 90% and iterate
From Analysis To Action
He shared stories of in-house dashboards, procurement pilots, and workflow tools that saved money and improved care, but were never scaled or commercialized. “We don’t lack ideas, we lack ambition,” he said.
What Healthcare Teams Can Take Away
Every healthcare leader, not just vendors or startups, can think like a business developer. Look at your internal innovations. Think big, act fast, and build teams with diverse skill sets (including outside healthcare).
“Bold systems need bold leaders. Let’s stop hiring only from healthcare, and start building for the world.” – Matthew Lister
Nova Scotia’s Innovation Playbook: Testing, Scaling, and Redefining Partnerships
Photo of Margaret Palmeter, Senior Director of Innovation, Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub
Margaret Palmeter, the Senior Director of Innovation at the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub, closed the conference with a dynamic behind-the-scenes look at how one province is turning bold ideas into real health system change.
From COVID Crisis To National Leadership
Born during the pandemic, the Innovation Hub began as a rapid-response “skunk works” team solving PPE shortages and logistics bottlenecks. That urgency sparked a culture of agility, trust-building, and “test and try” pilots, now scaled into one of the country’s most forward-thinking health innovation platforms.
Test, Try, Scale
Palmeter’s team avoids the word “pilot.” Instead, their “test and try” model quickly trials solutions and moves fast to broader deployment.
Examples include:
- Virtual Care NS: From rural pilot to province-wide coverage for unattached patients.
- Virtual Hallway: A local innovation that cuts unnecessary specialist referrals by 83%.
- YourHealthNS App: Gives 30K+ users access to 10 years of medical data, now scaling.
- Mimosa Diagnostics: An equity-first wound tool effective across skin tones.
- Ring Rescue: A Halifax-born medtech, now in every ER in Nova Scotia.
Partnerships That Deliver ROI
Their 10-year deal with Varian (a Siemens Healthineers company) blends research, digital deployment, and commercial upside. The contract includes fleet replacements, an innovation fund, and a co-developed oncology product with shared revenue.
Innovation Is A Team Sport
With 40 staff and 101 active projects, the Hub thrives on cross-functional talent: finance, legal, comms, clinicians, and engineers. They’ve embedded IT, HR, and CFO liaisons to speed up innovation while protecting system integrity.
What Healthcare Teams Can Take Away
Innovation must be integrated, not pushed. Build with operations and clinical champions from the start. Commercialization isn’t dirty, it’s how ideas scale impact. And every team, from research to finance, can drive innovation if given the right structure and trust.
“We don’t just test ideas. We test culture. And we’re bold enough to go first.” – Margaret Palmeter
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