AMS Healthcare Conference-April 2023
8:15 — 9:00 Breakfast
9:00 — 9:15
Helen Angus
As Chief Executive Officer at AMS, Helen brings her many talents and a renewed energy to the organization’s role as a catalyst for change and innovation in healthcare. Helen has a demonstrated ability to lead complex organizations and inspire others to drive systems-level change. From 2018 – 2021 she was Deputy Minister in the Ontario Ministry of Health, where she helmed Ontario’s initial health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She played a critical leadership role in the groundbreaking work of Cancer Care Ontario and as co-chair of the Council of Deputy Ministers of Health. Helen is currently a distinguished fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
AMS Healthcare CEO
9:15 — 10:45
Christoph Meier
Prof. Christoph A. Meier, M.D., is Director of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University Hospital Zurich. He is an advocate of patient-oriented and quality-based medicine, which he promotes e.g. as a member of the Federal Quality Commission, the Newsweek expert panel for the 'Best Hospitals of the World', and as an advisory board member for the Swiss Healthcare Atlas. From 2016 to 2020, Prof. C.A. Meier was CMO at the University Hospital Basel, where he and his team introduced Value-based Health Care and PROMs. Prior to 2016 he was Head of the Department of Medicine at the Triemli Hospital in Zurich.
from the Future of Health group, will speak on the future of the workforce with an emphasis on technology and compassion, followed by a commentary from the panel.
Cameron Love
Cameron Love is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Ottawa Hospital (TOH), one of Canada’s leading academic health sciences centres. He took on this leadership role as of July 1, 2020, in an unprecedented time as Ontario’s health system adapts to a new service model in the wake of COVID-19. Cameron has a Master’s in Health Administration, and training at the Wharton and Telfer Schools of Business. Cameron is involved in many regional and provincial initiatives and sits on several boards that promote the health and well being of the people in the region.
Brian Hodges
Brian Hodges is Executive-Vice President Education and Chief Medical Officer at University Health Network and Professor in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and President, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Brian is a practicing psychiatrist and teacher. His research and writing focus on assessment, competence, compassion and the future of the health professions.
Gillian Strudwick
Gillian Strudwick RN, PhD, FAMIA, FCAN is the Chief Clinical Informatics Officer and Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and former Interim Chief Nursing Executive. She is also an Associate Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Dr. Strudwick is a board member of AMS Healthcare and the Liberty Village Family Health Team.
Tazim Virani
Dr. Tazim Virani is a Registered Nurse with a PhD in health policy, management and evaluation. Tazim brings 40 years of experience in the health and social development sectors through roles including: clinician, administrator, educator, researcher, and system leader. Tazim is Senior Vice President, Social Impact & Global Initiatives at SE Health, leading a social impact initiative: Future of Aging. The program’s vision is to provide older adults to live with dignity, choice and independence in their home and communities. Its four key pillars are: 1) Human rights and combating ageism; 2) Building coalitions for action; 3) Age friendly and affordable housing options; and 4) Innovation in ageing.
10:45 — 11:15 Break
11:15 — 12:15
John Lavis
John supports efforts to address health and broader societal challenges using the best-available research evidence and experiences and insights from citizens, professionals, organizational leaders, and government policymakers. He is co-lead of and lead report writer for the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges, as well as co-lead of Rapid-Improvement Support and Exchange (RISE). He is the Director of the McMaster Health Forum and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Evidence-Informed Policy. He is a Professor in the Department of Health Evidence and Impact at McMaster University and the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Evidence-Support Systems.
Director, McMaster Health Forum will provide an overview of this newly released McMaster Health Forum work, commissioned by AMS, followed by the panel response.
Onil Bhattacharyya
Onil Bhattacharyya is the Frigon Blau Chair in Family Medicine Research at Women’s College Hospital and director of the Institute for Health Systems Solutions and Virtual Care. He is the lead for the Centre for Digital Health Evaluation and CNDHE. He is also the principal investigator of the CPCRN funded by CIHR. He practices family medicine and is an Associate Professor in the DFCM and IHPME at the University of Toronto. He has been a Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Commonwealth Fund in New York City and a Takemi Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Anna Foat
Anna Foat is a passionate patient advocate. When she isn’t lending her expertise to public health care organizations trying to create compassionate and equitable digital solutions based on her 20 years in technology roles in the private sector, she’s busy designing systems and new ways of working and understanding using human centred design to inform the work and drive meaningful outcomes.
Tim Rutledge
Dr. Tim Rutledge is the first President and CEO of Unity Health Toronto. He has led the integration of St. Joseph’s Health Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital and Providence Healthcare, creating one of Canada’s largest academic health sciences organizations. Under his leadership, Unity Health launched its first strategic plan, focused on creating the best care experiences and leading in health equity, world-class specialty care and artificial intelligence. Dr. Rutledge was previously President and CEO of North York General Hospital and has a background in emergency medicine. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, recognized for excellence in teaching.
Nicole Woods
Dr. Nicole Woods, PhD, is a cognitive psychologist who examines the role of basic science knowledge in clinical reasoning and the development of medical expertise. Applying principles of memory and human cognition to education across the health professions, her research program focuses on the mental representation of categories and instructional design that supports cognitive integration of basic and clinical sciences. Dr. Woods is the Director of the Institute for Education Research (TIER), an Associate Director & Education Scientist at The Wilson Centre, and the Senior Director of Education and Research Integration at the University Health Network.
12:15 — 12:30
Karima Velji
After a career of over 30 years as a nurse and healthcare leader, Dr. Karima Velji has joined the Ministry of Health as the first Chief of Nursing & Professional Practice and Assistant Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Health in Ontario. Her division is responsible for strategies to optimize Ontario’s health human resources (HHR) as well as develop long-range strategies for capacity planning for its healthcare system, including an innovative and futuristic approach to HHR. She is an experienced healthcare leader having held several senior positions, including President and Chair of the Board of Directors of Canadian Nurses Association (2014-2016).
Chief of Nursing & Professional Practice, ADM, Ontario Ministry of Health
12:30 — 13:30 Lunch
13:30 — 15:00
Bernita Drenth
Bernita Drenth provides senior health policy counsel to clients in the public and private sector. A particular focus for Drenth Consultants Inc. is the area of health care. Drenth Consultants Inc. provides strategic advice and project oversight to clients with a vital stake in the significant structural changes taking place throughout the health care system. Areas of focus include health profession policy and reform, governance, patient-based funding reform and academic medicine.
Alan J. Forster
Alan J. Forster MD, FRCPC, MSc is the EVP, Chief Innovation and Quality Officer at the Ottawa Hospital. His focus is enabling teams to create higher value health care. He has led research on patient safety and quality improvement. He performed the seminal work evaluating the incidence of adverse events following discharge from hospital. He has also led the Ottawa Hospital’s data strategy which has been used to support research, operations, and planning. Alan is a leader in the field of healthcare quality. He is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
Rachel Cooper
Rachel Cooper is a Toronto-based bioethicist and qualitative researcher. She received her Master of Bioethics degree from Harvard Medical School, where her coursework and capstone research project focused on issues of mental health ethics and the ethics of patient engagement – topics inspired by her own experiences of receiving mental health care, her experiences as a caregiver to critically ill family members at the beginning and end of life, and her many professional roles across Ontario’s mental health sector. Rachel is currently pursuing her Master of Education degree at the University of Toronto, where she is thinking about the ethics of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis through lenses of social justice education.
Michael E. Green
Dr. Michael Green was appointed as the Brian Hennen Chair and Head of the Department of Family Medicine on July 1, 2017. He is Professor of Family Medicine Public Health Sciences, and Policy Studies at Queen’s University and a Senior Adjunct Scientist at the ICES. In 2018 he was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. In Nov 2022 he was elected as President-Elect of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Michael has served on many professional and government expert committees including the AMS Healthcare Board of Directors.
Adam Hutton
Adam leads the Provider Solutions Business Unit at WELL Health Technologies Inc. With close to one in four Canadian doctors currently using one of WELL’s digital tools, this Business Unit is comprised of technologies including EMRs, virtual care, patient engagement tools, billing services, and WELL’s apps.health ecosystem. Some brands you may recognize in the portfolio include AwareMD, Intrahealth, Oscar Pro, DoctorCare, and the OceanMD Network. Adam was also part of the founding team of Khure Health Inc. which is North America's most advanced rare and specialty disease clinical intelligence platform - empowering physicians to identify and treat patients with rare and specialty diseases.
Carolyn Steele Gray
Carolyn Steele Gray, MA, PhD holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Implementing Digital Health Innovation. She is a Scientist at the Bridgepoint Collaboratory for Research and Innovation at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto in Canada. Dr. Steele Gray’s program of work focuses on the role of digital health in supporting integrated and person-centred care delivery for patients with complex care needs, applying implementation science and evaluation methods to uncover how best to integrate technology in novel delivery models.
15:00 — 16:15 Break
15:15 — 16:15
Team Unity and Team Trillium will debate the resolution, Discussants will then provide reaction to the debate and a general discussion will close the session
Muhammad Mamdani
Dr. Mamdani is Vice President of Data Science and Advanced Analytics at Unity Health Toronto and Director of the University of Toronto Temerty Faculty of Medicine Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM). Dr. Mamdani is also Professor at the University of Toronto and has published over 500 studies in peer-reviewed medical journals. Dr. Mamdani holds a PharmD degree from the University of Michigan, a fellowship in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research from the Detroit Medical Center, an MA degree in Economics from Wayne State University, and a MPH degree from Harvard University.
Amol Verma
Amol Verma is a physician and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital and the Temerty Professor of AI Research and Education in Medicine at the University of Toronto. He completed the AMS Healthcare AI and Compassion Fellowship in 2020-21. Amol co-founded and co-leads GEMINI, Canada’s largest hospital clinical data research network that includes 30 hospitals in Ontario. He is a member of the Council of Canadian Academies Expert Panel on Health Data Sharing, a Provincial Clinical Lead for Quality Improvement in General Internal Medicine with Ontario Health and received the CIHR 2022 Trailblazer Award in Population and Public Health Research.
vs.
Dante Morra
Dr. Dante Morra is the Chief of Staff at Trillium Health Partners (THP), one of Canada’s largest academically affiliated community hospitals. He oversees 1,400 physicians and professional staff and has created one of the most innovative hospital networks in the province. In his hospital role, Dr. Morra has launched a series of bold ventures to transform health care. They include the Institute for Better Health, founded to lead practical research to solve the major challenges in the health care system, and the CAN (Coordinated Accessible National) Health Network that allows Canadian medtech companies to scale to their full potential to advance prosperity through a new health care economy.
Laura Desveaux
Dr. Desveaux is the Scientific Director of the Institute for Better Health at Trillium Health Partners and the Lead for the Learning Health System Portfolio. She is also the founder and Executive Director of Women Who Lead, an organization dedicated to supporting the career advancement and leadership development of women in the health sector. Her work in behavioural science tackles healthcare’s most persistent problems by examining what drives behaviours, how and why things work, and identifying how context influences success (and failure). This approach provides insights into how to effect change at both individual and system levels.
Will Falk
Will Falk, B.SC, MPPM, has spent over 25 years as an international strategist, advising top academic centres, governments, and innovative companies in healthcare. He is a Fellow at the Rotman School of Management at U of T, the CD Howe Institute and at the Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care. He has been a Board Director for more than a dozen enterprises including AMS, local and national charities, start-ups, health systems and publicly listed companies.
Matthew Anderson
Matthew Anderson, President and CEO, Ontario Health, is an experienced health care leader, team-builder and advocate for positive change. Before joining Ontario Health, Matthew was President and CEO of Lakeridge Health. At Ontario Health, Matthew is leading one of the largest mergers in health care history, bringing together 22 agencies. Matthew began his career in data analytics and IT. He became Vice President and Chief Information Officer at UHN in 2000. In 2008, he was named CEO of the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network and in 2010, became CEO of William Osler Health System.
Chris O’Connor
Chris is a critical care physician who founded Think Research in 2006. During his tenure as President of Think, Chris was involved in implementing informatics solutions across Canada, Iceland, Ireland, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the United States. He was the President of Think until it went public in 2020, at which time he turned his attention to new projects. Chris joined FirstHx as the CEO in 2021. Since joining FirstHx Chris has seen the FirstHx solution deployed in both virtual and in person care environments. FirstHx has achieved enhanced clinical efficiency, quality and a remarkable 97% patient satisfaction rating.
Saurabh Popat
Saurabh is a diversified tri-sector health care professional with twenty-five years of healthcare ecosystem experience across the public (government), not-for-profit (professional association) and private (pharma, medtech, consulting, digital health) sectors. His healthcare leadership and governance experiences span across public policy, government relations, stakeholder relations, market access and business development. He is passionate about advocating for the role of value-based innovation and particularly innovative digital health solutions, to support, enable and advance quadruple aim outcomes. He is an MHA alumnus from the Telfer School, CHE designated and is currently the Director of Business Development for TELUS Health.
16:15 — 16:30
Bonnie Adamson
Currently Board Chair of AMS, Bonnie is a health leadership consultant who draws on a wealth of experience, including service as President and CEO of London Health Sciences Centre, President, and CEO at North York General, and President and CEO of the Huron Perth Hospitals Partnership. She has held academic appointments at the University of Toronto and Western University, and served on the boards of Cancer Care Ontario and the Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan. Bonnie was appointed by the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care as Investigator for the Chatham Kent Health Alliance (2016) and Supervisor, Brantford Community Healthcare System (2017-2019).
AMS Board Chair
16:15 — 16:30
Network Reception