Health care systems in Canada and Sweden are facing increasing challenges to do with access and wait times for non-emergent issues. Both are seeing the erosion of single-payer health care systems as a consequence of these challenges, and both are emphasizing moving care out of hospitals into community and home care. Sweden has moved ahead in this area and Canadians can learn two key lessons from its experience. First, rather than thinking in terms of what’s best for the system or the provider, the Jönköping region in Sweden emphasizes the perspective of “Esther,” a hypothetical patient with a life beyond the walls of the institution. Second, viewing patients as copilots in their care has patients learning treatments, such as selfdialysis, with benefits to themselves and the system.