Phiz: Designing the Future of Public Health - Together

Public health is powerful, but it deserves systems that match its purpose.

What if public health wasn’t defined by its constraints, but by its potential?

Across Ontario and beyond, public health teams do extraordinary work under extraordinary pressure. They manage complexity, navigate uncertainty, and protect communities using systems that weren’t built for the pace or demands of today’s world.

But what if that could change?

What if we chose to reimagine everything?

Phiz was created as a bold answer to that question.

Phiz is a public health innovation zone dedicated to weaving emerging data practices, human-centred design, modern technology, and collective creativity into the daily work of public health. We exist to help every community, large or small, experience the benefits of a stronger, smarter, more modernized public health system.

Not someday.

Not hypothetically.

But now.

What if public health became one of the most efficiently run sectors? #

Imagine a sector where:

• Data is fluid, trustworthy, and instantly actionable.

• Workflows are clean, elegant, intentional and reduce effort rather than add it.

• Automation removes burdens instead of creating them.

• Teams anticipate challenges instead of reacting to them.

• Privacy and innovation strengthen one another through design.

• Every agency experiences the same level of digital excellence, regardless of size or geography.

What if public health became not just efficient but inspiring, a global model for how to run a modern, high-performing, human-centred public system?

At Phiz, we believe this is not wishful thinking.

It’s a design challenge.

And it’s solvable.

What if data wasn’t a barrier, but a breakthrough? #

Public health holds some of the richest data in the public sector. Yet much of it remains underutilized and trapped in silos, fragmented systems, and manual workflows.

Phiz is building a different future:

• Data captured once, used everywhere.

• Insights appearing instantly when and where they matter.

• Emerging risks identified in real time.

• Privacy & security embedded as a strength, not a constraint.

Public health shouldn’t be overwhelmed by data.

It should be empowered by it.

What if workflows were designed and not inherited? #

Many public health workflows were never intentionally designed; they evolved through decades of patchwork adjustments.

Phiz is rethinking them from the ground up.

Using service design, automation, systems thinking, and human-centred approaches, we create workflows that feel:

• intuitive

• efficient

• humane

• and deeply aligned with the realities of public health work

Public health deserves tools and systems that support brilliance, not exhaustion.

Phiz: Where Ideas Belong to Everyone #

Phiz is more than an innovation zone.

It’s a shared space.

A creative commons for public health.

It’s a place where ideas bubble up from everywhere:

• Frontline staff, who encounter real-world challenges and see practical opportunities every single day.

• Health units and municipal partners, who understand the interconnected systems shaping community well-being and bring diverse operational insights that spark system-wide innovation.

• Provincial government partners, who shape policy, funding, and the enabling conditions that allow modernization to scale.

• Universities and Colleges, who infuse research, curiosity, and cutting-edge thinking into applied public health practice.

• Non-profits and community organizations, who carry deep insights into local needs, inequities, and lived realities.

• Community voices, whose experiences and wisdom are essential to designing solutions that truly serve people.

• Students and emerging professionals, who challenge assumptions and bring fresh, future-focused ideas.

• Public health leaders, who are reimagining structures, strategies, and systems to better support the communities they serve.

Phiz is where shared wisdom becomes shared innovation.

What if innovation wasn’t an initiative, but the way we work every day? #

Innovation in public health cannot be owned by one group. It must be collective.

Phiz is designed as a platform where everyone participates, regardless of role, seniority, discipline, or background. A place where:

• Ideas are welcomed, not guarded.

• Experiments are encouraged, not stifled.

• Solutions are shared openly, not limited by boundaries.

We build prototypes that others can replicate.

We refine methods that others can adopt.

We create tools that anyone can use to make their community healthier and safer.

Phiz is how public health modernizes - together.

Phiz exists to:

• uncover what’s possible

• prototype what’s next

• share what works

• scale what matters

• and build a system defined not by limitation, but by collaboration and leadership

What if the next breakthrough idea is already bubbling up inside someone in your organization?

What if, together, we built a public health system unlike anything the world has seen before?

Phiz is open.

Your ideas, your prototypes, your insights, they belong here.

Bring them forward. Contribute boldly. Share what needs to be seen, tested, refined, and grown for everyone’s benefit.

The future is something we can create - together.

Dr. Kyle Wilson