Designing the Hospital of Tomorrow: Insights from the University of Waterloo
In this keynote, Danina Kapetanovic will introduce CareNext, a coalition created through the partnership between Waterloo Regional Health Network and the University of Waterloo, as a new model for future-proofing healthcare.
CareNext is an embedded platform that builds the culture, governance, and infrastructure needed to transform care while enabling the responsible adoption of new technologies. It equips the region to co-develop digital solutions with industry and integrate them into clinical practice, research, and policy. Its work spans applied research, workforce development, policy innovation, and community engagement, ensuring transformation is both systemic and sustainable.
As the region advances plans for a new hospital on the University of Waterloo campus, CareNext provides the framework for designing it as a hospital of the future: digitally enabled, deeply connected to research and education, responsive to evolving patient needs, and resilient in the face of disruption.
Biography
Danina Kapetanovic is Vice President of Innovation and Chief Health Innovation Officer for the Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) and the University of Waterloo. She co-leads the CareNext Coalition, a first-of-its-kind health innovation ecosystem that embeds innovation into everyday care by uniting research, training, technology co-development, care delivery, and community engagement. Through CareNext, she is helping to future-proof healthcare while advancing the vision for a new regional hospital on the University of Waterloo campus.
Previously, Danina was Chief Innovation Officer at CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, where she founded OROT, the Connected Health Innovation Hub, to pioneer digitally enabled, patient-centred care. She also served as Executive Director of Hacking Health, a global grassroots movement that produced over 1,500 digital health projects across 63 cities. Earlier, she spent nearly two decades with the United Nations, leading public–private partnerships that delivered transformative health and nutrition programs worldwide.