Netiv Events

Discover upcoming Netiv Institute events focused on advancing health system learning, design, and transformation through research-driven dialogue and collective insight.

Netiv Launch Speech

Speech by Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, delivered during the Netiv Institute launch ceremony on February 25, 2026.

Dr. Rosenberg during Netiv launch

Good morning and thank you all for being here.

It means a great deal to welcome you to Jewish General Hospital - and to share this moment with colleagues, partners, innovators, and friends. Before I say anything about Netiv, I’d like to begin with a short poem by Portia Nelson called Autobiography in Five Short Chapters. Some of you may know it.

Portia Nelson
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

CHAPTER 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

CHAPTER 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

CHAPTER 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit…
But my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

CHAPTER 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

CHAPTER 5

I walk down another street.
It’s a simple poem. But it carries a profound lesson.
The problem isn’t the hole.
It’s the street.

I often think about that poem when I think about healthcare.

For decades, we’ve approached healthcare challenges in much the same way.
We encounter a crisis.
We mobilize.
We inject more resources.
We reorganize.
We add programs, policies, and layers of oversight.

And very often, we assume that doing more of the same - especially spending more money - will finally produce different results.

Yet despite extraordinary investments and extraordinary dedication, the pressures keep growing.
Demand outpaces capacity.
Complexity overwhelms coordination.
Burnout spreads across the system.

The issue isn’t effort.
It isn’t commitment.
And it isn’t even primarily funding.

The issue is that we are still walking down the same street.

What we are facing is a systems problem.

Today marks the official launch of Netiv, the Institute for Health Systems Thinking.

Netiv exists because our health systems are under strain everywhere, structurally.

We all recognize the pressures: aging populations, workforce shortages, rising chronic disease, rapidly advancing digital and AI capabilities, growing inequities, and public expectations shaped by a digital world.

Most responses have been incremental.

But healthcare is a complex adaptive system.
And when complexity rises beyond a certain point, linear solutions stop working.

Adding more rules, more reporting, more centralized control does not create the capacity to learn and improve under stress. It often creates fragility.

We believe healthcare needs not just reform, but redesign.

Its foundation rests on four deeply interconnected ideas:

  • Complexity science

  • Antifragility

  • Value-based care

  • Artificial intelligence

These are not separate pillars. They are mutually reinforcing dynamics, woven together into a single, living system. Each strengthens the others.

Complex systems require learning.
Learning requires data and intelligence.
Intelligence must be directed toward value.
And value demands continuous learning and adaptability.

Together, they form a coherent architecture for transformation.

At Netiv, we begin with a simple but radical premise:
The system should adapt to the person - ultimately, the system should become the person.

We have reached a point of criticality.
We can continue optimizing yesterday’s system.
Or we can design tomorrows’s.

Netiv is our commitment to the second path.

It is meant to be a living institute. A platform for experimentation, learning, partnership, and transformation.

A place where ideas move quickly into practice.
Where failures are treated as data.
And where success is measured in lives improved.

It is about inviting into a journey- across disciplines, across sectors, across boundaries.

Netiv will only succeed through collaboration.

This is the beginning of a shared effort to reimagine health systems- not as fragile machines, but as adaptive, learning ecosystems.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

We look forward to embarking on this journey together.

Lawrence Rosenberg, MD, PhD

President & CEO, CIUSSS West-Central Montreal
Founder, Netiv Institute for Health Systems Thinking
Author of Patients Matter Most and From Vision to Vitality

COMING SOON

Exclusive Events

Reserved for Netiv members, these sessions offer structured, complexity-informed dialogue on critical system issues. Private events include thematic roundtables exploring focused system questions such as access, structural fragility, and AI as enabling infrastructure; research briefings and insight sessions that translate emerging evidence into strategic implications; cross-sector dialogues bringing together policymakers, health leaders, and researchers for candid exchange; and member learning forums designed to support deeper reflection, collective sense-making, and disciplined ideation.