Canada’s health systems remain vulnerable to supply disruptions due to over reliance on globally sourced health products and limited visibility into domestic manufacturing capacity. This study presents an empirically tested, artificial intelligence enabled search platform designed to automate the sourcing of health products from Canadian companies. The platform enables supply chain teams to efficiently identify Canadian suppliers for health products, overcoming the lack of aware- ness of Canadian manufacturers of health products and builds a “Canada First” supply chain strategy. The platform has the potential to identify Canadian suppliers, reduce the burden of manual searches, support jurisdictions seeking to diversify Canadian sources and prioritize economic growth.

Canada's healthcare supply chain faces persistent disruptions, and its fragility has been well documented. This jeopardizes patients' access to critical care and places significant stress on healthcare professionals, which points to the essential need for a collaborative approach to building relationships, strengthening self-reliance and advancing healthcare supply chain resilience in Canada. This paper documents the design and development of a community of practice (CoP) strategy, bringing together representatives from different sectors, including the private sector, government, health workforce, health system leadership and citizens, to successfully mobilize their diverse expertise and co-design practical solutions to support supply chain resilience in Canada.