Gillian Strudwick

Gillian Strudwick is an Independent Scientist, and Interim Chief Nurse Executive at The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She is Assistant Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and is a nationally and internationally recognized digital mental health leader who has passionately devoted her career to the advancement of health informatics for the benefit of patients and clinicians. Gillian is also an AMS Fellow and her research focused on using technology to deliver compassionate mental health care.

Gillian is a recipient of the Emerging Nurse Researcher (North America) Award from Sigma Theta Tau International (2019), and in 2020 was recognized by Digital Health Canada as a Top 10 Women Leaders in Digital Health.  She has advanced research related to digital health in the area of compassion, and mental health and addictions. She has been a strong advocate for patient and family engagement in health informatics, as the patient voice is seldom included meaningfully in the development of the technology, processes, and polices that support the use of the tools. In collaboration with Canada Health InfoWay, Gillian led a pan-Canadian team of researchers in developing resources to support clinicians in conversation with patients about digital health tools. This work is currently being disseminated and scaled up for implementation across health systems in Ontario.

Gillian has been instrumental in defining the field of digital compassion, having written broadly in this area and co-leads an initiative defining digital compassion in health care, which is critical particularly with the recent proliferation of virtual care due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gillian is co-leading a CIHR funded research grant focused on synthesizing knowledge on digital interventions to support population mental health during COVID-19. Her success in these large initiatives is indicative of her reputation as a leader in digital mental health.