At the Canadian Home Care Association (CHCA) Summit this morning, we were discussing our visions for health care and our assessment of the system today.

When I think to the future, I look at today for inspiration. There’s been much in the news recently about Steve Jobs and all that he achieved. In particular, fellow panellist Andrew Coyne’s article in Macleans captured the phenomenal ability Jobs had to positively impact society and establish a deep, meaningful relationship between Apple and its diverse consumers.

Apple is a brilliant example of what can happen when technology and human interest collide. I’m not sure how many of you have seen the TV commercial “We’ll always…” - it shows people sharing photos, reading a good book, using recipes, cheering on their favourite team, learning to spell and write ‘lion’. The commercial is all about how the iPad will change how we do things, and about not changing what we do or who we are. We’ll just find it easier to do what we do. And we’ll be able to do it better. Sounds so simple. Yet the way we do things has changed forever and Apple has made that transition magical.

Similarly in my vision for health care, we’ll continue to do much of what we do now but we’ll be doing it very differently. We’ll be doing it better. We’ll have deeper relationships with people so we can help them to find information, services, and supports that they need to maintain and improve their health and life circumstances, and, at times, help them to best manage more difficult situations. People will find what they need with ease and be able to have greater control over their health and its management.

In my vision, technologies energize human strengths. Incredible things are possible when we couple compassion, human kindness and meaningful relationships with tools and knowledge.Just as Steve Jobs captured the magic that comes from Apple’s sweet spot – so too we need to capture that magic in health care. We need the same kind of collision that Jobs found between technology and what people are doing and will be doing in the future.

And, coming back to today, my assessment of our system now is simply this: we’re missing the magic.