Across Canada, healthcare is undergoing a rapid digital transformation.
Artificial intelligence-powered diagnostics, virtual consultations, and real-time patient monitoring are becoming part of everyday care. These innovations promise more timely access, more precise interventions, and better use of strained resources.
But behind this shift is a new and often overlooked vulnerability: power.
Every digital tool, data exchange, and diagnostic scan runs on electricity and as care becomes more connected, its dependence on stable, affordable energy is increasing.
We’ve previously explored the critical need for reliable energy to power Canadian data centres, which are foundational to modern healthcare services.
Hospitals and clinics are already investing in smart systems, electronic records, and AI integration. At the same time, they rely on core infrastructure like surgical lighting, infusion pumps, and HVAC systems.
None of this works without reliable power.
We’re exploring healthcare transformation this month because, coming off the heels of the election, our research shows that 90 per cent of engaged women ranked healthcare as their top policy priority when deciding how to vote — ahead of jobs, housing, and taxes.
Yet public conversations about healthcare often focus narrowly on workforce shortages, wait times and funding gaps. Those issues matter, but we also need policy conversations that reflect how essential energy security has become to healthcare delivery and the innovations that can influence the issues traditionally focused on like those just mentioned.
System-level changes are needed to support resilience, says Steve Young, Chief Innovation Officer at Nurses for Sustainable Care.
“Resilience in healthcare infrastructure and power systems is essential for ensuring uninterrupted patient care, especially during emergencies,” Young said in an interview with Canada Powered by Women.
Many of the systems we rely on today run on power grids that were never designed for this level of demand. These grids are now shared with data centres, electric vehicle networks, and other energy-intensive sectors.
Young notes that if all the AI data centres currently planned in Alberta were to go live, electricity demand would double. And that estimate does not include the added needs of healthcare alone.
Healthcare resilience is a policy conversation
Resilient healthcare requires coordinated investment across energy systems, infrastructure and public policy.
Hospitals and care centres need smart technologies that improve efficiency, including HVAC systems, LED lighting and automated controls.
They also need more consistent local power generation to reduce reliance on the broader grid. While renewables and microgrids can help, they are not enough to meet the continuous power needs of healthcare.
In provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, natural gas continues to support reliability and system growth.
In Ontario, nuclear power provides a lot of the province’s steady baseload supply, while natural gas and hydro play important roles in managing peak demand and maintaining overall system stability.
In hydro-rich provinces such as Quebec and British Columbia, hydroelectricity helps meet power demands, while natural gas is also used to provide flexibility and backup when needed.
Canada’s healthcare system depends on a power supply that is diverse, stable, reliable and scalable. Meeting that need requires a balanced mix of sources so that hospitals and clinics have access to the energy they need, when and where they need it.
Energy security is also central to how care is funded.
Revenues from the development and export of Canadian energy help support public services, including healthcare. These links are often missing from public conversation, but they are fundamental to the system Canadians rely on.
For women who rank healthcare, affordability and economic security as top concerns, these connections matter.
If Canada wants to modernize care and deliver digital health more broadly, the energy systems that support that future need attention now.
Energy and healthcare are not separate policy conversations. They are two sides of the same public promise: that Canadians can count on high-quality, accessible care when and where they need it.
That promise depends on power, in every sense of the word.