From Shared Purpose to Collective Impact: Reflections from ICIC26 

Meghan Perrin, Strategic Enablement and Operations, The Centre for Systems Collaboration 

There is a sense of belonging that washed over you when you walk into a room full of people who care about the same things you do. At ICIC26 in Birmingham, I felt it from the moment I arrived through three full days of sessions, conversations, and connections I’m still weaving into my practice. 

Fifty-five countries represented by nearly 1,000 delegates – people with lived and living experience, system leaders, clinicians and researchers – all gathered around a shared commitment to making health and care more connected, more human, and more responsive to the people it serves. As someone who works towards advance integrated care and population health, it was a grounding experience, filling my cup and my notes in equal measure. This year, I both attended as a participant and had the pleasure to chair a session, and as with the previous two ICIC conference I had the pleasure to attend, I left more connected to this community and this work than when I arrived. 

Creating the enabling conditions to navigate the messy middle 

What energized me most was the palpable collective readiness to move past the vision and into the doing. As Samantha Laxton shared: "The real work now lies in the 'messy middle' of the complex, relational, and evidence-informed work of implementation." 

One reframe I keep returning to is one Dr. Clenton Farquharson's elucidated during the conference’s first plenary is the idea of person-shaped care. It goes even further than person-centred — letting people's lives, knowledge, and realities determine what care looks like. I expect this framing will stay in my practice for a long time. 

For me, this is part of how the field is converging not just on what integrated care should look like, but on the relational foundation that makes it possible — trust, shared purpose, genuine co-production. As Jodeme Goldhar, co-director of NACIC, reminded us: "We are here to be connected to our shared purpose and to consider the ways in which we might have to shift the way we're doing things so that we can work together in interdependent ways for collective impact." 

Canadians in Birmingham 

With nearly a quarter of all delegates from across Canada, we had the chance to share our work with the world — and to learn from each other and from colleagues in other jurisdictions. A highlight every year, the IFIC Canada Reception brought together roughly 250 Canadian delegates to connect, reflect, and renew our shared purpose. It is one of my favourite moments of the conference, and a vivid reminder of what this community is building together. 

A few highlights from my conference experience:  

The NACIC Integrated Care Compendium was a proud milestone for our network. Years in the making, it gives the Canadian integrated care field a shared reference point — and signals to the international community that Canada is building its knowledge infrastructure with intention and care.  

At the ICIC26 Awards, Dr. Grace Spiro was second-runner-up for the Patient and Caregiver Engagement Award for her work exploring what drives person-centred care within primary care systems. 

Ontario Health Teams showed up in force — Oxford, West Toronto, East Toronto Health Partners, Burlington, Northumberland, and Frontenac, Lennox and Addington among those sharing implementation stories that drew genuine curiosity from peers around the world.  

Speaking Up in Care, led by Emily Cordeaux and Isra Amsdr, was one of the most human conversations of the conference — exploring why speaking up remains so difficult for patients and caregivers, and what it takes to change that. Kindness, genuine listening, and the knowledge that your voice will lead to something are simple yet fundamental and integrated care networks can make speaking up structurally safer. 

The session on Collaboration Towards Transformative Action brought together pan-Canadian organizations — HSO, CMA, Healthcare Excellence Canada, CIHR, NACIC, and the Canadian Primary Care Research Consortium — to explore what moving from parallel work to genuine collective action actually looks like. What stayed with me was how during the session I was not experiencing multiple organizations, but one pan-Canadian leadership team. That’s the possibility we’re working toward. 

The poster presentations further showcased Canadian work across the full continuum of care — from HSO and East Toronto Health Partners using the Integrated Care Maturity Assessment to build a shared roadmap, to Jennifer Rayner and the Alliance for Healthier Communities sharing the vision for Neighbourhood Health Homes as a hub-and-spoke model for universal primary care attachment in Ontario, to the Alzheimer Society of Ontario’s DREAM program supporting over 7,600 people living with dementia while avoiding nearly 3,000 hospital admissions, to SE Research Centre and Sunnybrook both demonstrating what coordinated, person-centred care looks like in practice. 

An invitation to Join the Movement 

I came home with new connections, new ideas, and a clearer sense of where Canadians can contribute and lead. The integrated care community is large, globally distributed, and deeply committed — and being in a room with that community is its own kind of fuel that keeps me invigorated to work in these spaces in between.  

While I'm very much looking forward to ICIC27 in Tallinn, I am most excited for #NACIC27, coming to Toronto October 13-15, 2027. It is our opportunity to convene as Canadians and welcome the world — to share what we have been building and keep advancing this movement together. I hope to see you there!  

Meghan Perrin plays a role in Strategic Enablement and Operations with The Centre for Systems Collaboration and is a bilingual contributor to NACIC. Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/meghanperrin