IFIC Canada Virtual Community Webinar Series
The International Foundation for Integrated Care Canada hub (IFIC Canada) has over 1000 people involved, with many different lenses, who have an interest in advancing Integrated Care throughout North America. The virtual community provides a platform to bring these individuals and organizations together to achieve the goal of improving care for patients and their families.
Together, we will learn from innovative Integrated Care practices from around the world – and from each other’s experiences – so that we can facilitate Integrated Care and create positive change in North America. We will also look to the community to guide the focus of future webinars of the virtual network.
The inaugural virtual community meeting took place on Tuesday, 14 May, 2019, and brought together over 300 people from 14 different countries who are interested in making positive changes within the health and social care sectors. During this session, the community identified what they wanted the focus of the virtual community sessions to be as we move forward.
With each session, we will take a deeper dive into the themes identified by the community, bringing in expert knowledge from around the world, as well as ensuring we also bring the patient and caregiver voice to each session.
Throughout North America, there are many challenges and disruptions occurring across the health system, but that does not stop us from creating positive change! We look forward to getting to know you and collaborating with you to identify your own successes and challenges in Integrated Care.
The IFIC Canada Virtual Community is convened by the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), The Change Foundation and the Institute of Health, Policy Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto. It brings together those who are interested in making a positive change within the health and social care sectors. IFIC works in collaboration with over 60 countries who have prioritized Integrated Care.
Chaired by:
Jodeme Goldhar
Executive Lead, Strategy and Innovation,
The Change Foundation,
Co-Director, IFIC Canada and Treasurer, International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC)
Jodeme’s passion is convening opportunities for those in health and social care systems to work together around common goals to realize the potential for transformative improvement. As health systems pursue better integration, Jodeme believes that we need to work in new ways, with new power structures, to bring out the best in individuals, teams, communities and systems.
The Change Foundation serves as a catalyst to support large scale transformative change and ensures change opportunities are co-designed with patients/clients, their caregivers/carers and providers.
Jodeme brings over 20 years of experience in the Ontario health care and health policy sector and is an adjunct lecturer and co-instructor at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. Previously, Jodeme was the Chief Strategy Officer and Lead, Health System Integration for Complex Populations and Primary Care, at Toronto Central Community Care Access Centre. In those roles, Jodeme worked locally and internationally with government, organizations and providers across the health system, clients and families.
She has also acted as principal and co-principal investigator on a number of integrated care research initiatives to inform policy and practice in Ontario.
Jodeme serves as an International Fellow of the NHS Horizons team, a Senior Associate for The International Foundation for Integrated Care, an Executive Coach and is a Co founder of IFIC Canada, the North American Centre for Integrated Care.
Walter P. Wodchis
Professor
Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
University of Toronto
Walter Wodchis, PhD, is Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Research Chair in Implementation and Evaluation Science at the Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners. His main research interests are health economics and financing and health care policy evaluation.
Through his research programs which include more than 30 collaborating researchers and as many trainees, Dr. Wodchis has lead several studies examining complex needs of high cost patient groups, the implementation of integrated care programs to address those needs, and evaluations for a number of integrated care programs in Ontario.
Speakers:
Brenda Andreas
Brenda is a patient advisor at the Saskatchewan Health Authority and a patient surveyor with Accreditation Canada. She describes herself as both a patient and a family member. She is the caretaker of her village and supports many members of her community in their journey through the Healthcare system. She has a vision and a passion for the patient voice to be visible and to be heard.
Leslee J. Thompson
Leslee is the CEO of Accreditation Canada and Health Standards Organization, two Canadian based not-for profit corporations operating globally to improve quality health services for all. Working on the ground with teams in over 10,000 locations within every part of the health ecosystem across 38 countries, and more than 1,000 specialized, surveyors, faculty and technical committee members, HSO and AC are working to inspire positive change that improves the quality and safety of health and social services around the world.
Leslee has extensive Senior Executive and Corporate Director experience that spans multiple geographies and sectors including heath care, medical technology and retail in both the public and private sectors. Leslee is recognized for her leadership driving large-scale, complex changes within and across organizations and is a champion and internationally recognized for her work partnering with patients to improve outcomes.
Jeanette Edwards
Jeanette Edwards is the Strategic lead for Community Health, Quality and Learning and Acting Provincial Lead, Indigenous Health with the Shared Health organization in Manitoba. In this capacity she is involved with many aspects of the Manitoba provincial health transformation work including the provincial clinical and preventive service planning. Jeanette has led the provincial quality, patient safety and accreditation project.
Prior to this, Jeanette was Regional Director of Primary Health Care and Chronic Disease with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. In addressing broader primary health care principles Jeanette’s portfolio supported public and patient engagement and intersectoral collaboration. Jeanette also led the Specialized Services for Children and Youth initiative which brought service delivery partners and 3 government departments together to plan and deliver integrated client informed and centred services.
Jeanette served as Special Advisor to the Deputy Minister on Primary Care providing support for primary care renewal policy development and strategic action planning.
Jeanette is a surveyor with the Accreditation Canada. In this capacity, she has assisted in the development of the community health standards, the Indigenous accreditation processes and in surveying independent organizations and health systems across the country and internationally. Jeanette also co-chaired the Primary Health Care Technical Committee for the Health Standards Organization.
Jeanette remains active teaching at the University of Manitoba.
Victoria Stein
Dr Viktoria Stein is co-founder and co-CEO of VM Partners Integrating Health and Care and joint editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Integrated Care. Dr Stein’s recognition as a leading expert in integrated care policy, design and implementation has led to her extensive work as a consultant and expert for international agencies like the World Health Organisation, World Bank, the European Commission, or Accreditation Canada, providing input on so diverse topics as workforce development, integrated care design, evaluation and monitoring, or population health management and community involvement. A special focus throughout her career has been the creation of learning opportunities and environments, which foster knowledge generation and exchange.
Speakers:
Walter P. Wodchis
Professor
Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
University of Toronto
Walter Wodchis, PhD, is Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Research Chair in Implementation and Evaluation Science at the Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners. His main research interests are health economics and financing and health care policy evaluation.
Through his research programs which include more than 30 collaborating researchers and as many trainees, Dr. Wodchis has lead several studies examining complex needs of high cost patient groups, the implementation of integrated care programs to address those needs, and evaluations for a number of integrated care programs in Ontario.
John Flood
Family Advocate
Health PEI
John Flood’s role in Dementia Care and as a Family Advocate with Health PEI as it relates to the collective efforts in Appropriate Use of Antipsychotics (AUA) for people living with dementia in long-term care. John has an extensive career in literature (as a professor and in the publishing world). He cared for his late wife Eileen Flood – Eileen lived with Alzheimer’s and died in 2015. He has given guest and public lectures on a range of subjects, most recently, related to Grieving & Caregiving; Family Advocacy & Dementia Care. He is heavily involved in dementia care and improvement, bringing a critical perspective as a family advocate.
Ellen Hallsworth
Consultant
New York
Ellen Hallsworth is a consultant focusing on health policy and systems, and philanthropy, from an international comparative perspective. Based in New York, she worked previously as an Assistant Director at the Health Foundation in the UK, where she led some of the Foundation’s major investment and international programs. Before the Health Foundation, Ellen worked on UK public services at the Institute for Government, a leading UK think tank. She has been on the Board of one of the UK’s national clinical audits. She holds degrees from University College London and the University of Cambridge.
Jennifer Zelmer
President & CEO
Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement
Jennifer Zelmer joined the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement as its President and CEO in September 2018. She brings a long-standing commitment to healthcare improvement to the role, as well as expertise in spreading and scaling innovations that deliver better health, care, and value. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of Healthcare Policy, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Victoria, and a member of several health-related advisory committees and boards.
Previously, as President of Azimuth Health Group, Dr. Zelmer was a strategic advisor to leaders who sought to advance health and healthcare at local, national, and international levels. Before that, she held senior leadership positions with Canada Health Infoway, the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization, and the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Dr. Zelmer received her PhD and MA in economics from McMaster University and her B.Sc. in health information science from the University of Victoria
Geoffrey Anderson
Professor
University of Toronto
Geoffrey Anderson M.D. MSc. Ph.D. is Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto. He is the principal investigator of Ontario’s SPOR Primary and Integrated Community Healthcare Innovation Network – Better Access and Care for Complex Needs (BeACCoN). He has written extensively about health care system performance measurement and the impacts of health care interventions.
Dr. Henk Nies
Director of Strategy and Development
The Netherlands Centre of Expertise for Long-Term Care
Dr. Henk Nies is director of Strategy and Development of Vilans, the Netherlands Centre of Expertise for Long-Term Care. Moreover, since 2011 he is professor of Organisation and Policy Development in Long-term Care at the Jo Visser Endowed Chair at the VU University of Amsterdam. Furthermore, he is member of the Quality Council at the National Health Care Institute of the Netherlands.
He graduated at a psycho-gerontologist at Radboud University in Nijmegen and obtained his PhD addressing policy research in care for older people. Throughout his career, he has worked at the edge of policy, practice and research, first at provincial level, later at national level. He was involved in various national and international projects on long-term care, integrated care and quality in long-term care.
After his appointment at the Provincial Council for Health Care in Gelderland, he became a senior researcher and later head of the Department of Service Integration, Elderly Care and Quality in Health Care at NZi, the National Hospital Institute. Afterwards, he was appointed as director of Long-term Care at the Netherlands Institute for Care and Welfare. From this department and three other institutes Vilans was constituted. Henk Nies was CEO of Vilans during the first seven years of its existence and later, for five more years, he was member of the Executive Board. He changed position to contribute to Vilans during the final three years of his career at Vilans as director of Strategy and Development.
He has ample experience in many national innovation and improvement programmes in long-term care, in various cases as a project-leader. He was project-leader six years’ National Innovation of Elderly Care Program. He set up large, nation-wide innovation, improvement and implementation programmes such as ‘Improving professional-client interactions in elderly care’, the ‘National Dementia Care Program’, ‘Care for Better’, ‘In to Care’ and ‘Dignity and Pride’. His current field of interest is inter-organisational collaboration and innovation, quality management and dignity in elderly care. Moreover, he has been involved in several comparative studies in which national systems are compared.
In his international work, he was scientific director of CARMEN, the Care and Management of Services for Older People in Europe Network, a project supported by the European Commission (FP5). Moreover, he was a member of the scientific management team of the INTERLINKS-project, a project on health systems and long-term care for older people in Europe. He was also involved in comparative research on quality management (e.g., for the OECD), integrated care (European Social Network), dementia and respite care, integrated care and informal care. He was co-editor of the book Long-term care in Europe. Improving Policy and Practice. This year he was project-leader of a study for Dutch Parliament comparing the Dutch, Swedish and Danish system
Henk was also one of the founders of Eurocarers, the European association working for carers. In 2018 he was co-chair of the Scientific Committee of the 18th International Conference on Integrated Care in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Speakers:
Dr. Carolyn Steele Gray
Dr. Carolyn Steele Gray is a Scientist at the Bridgepoint Collaboratory for Research and Innovation at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her program of work focuses on the role of digital health in supporting integrated and person-centred care delivery for patients with complex care needs. She has studied and published in this topic across the technology life-cycle, including development, implementation and evaluation of digital health solutions. Dr. Steele Gray co-leads an international Special Interest Group in Digital Health Enabling Integrated Care under the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC). Follow Dr. Steele Gray on twitter @Dr_SteeleGray.
Lisa Dolovich BScPhm, PharmD MSc
Professor and Interim Dean
Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto
Professor (part-time), Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University
Lisa conducts research that aims to help people live their best lives while getting the support they need from the health care system and getting the benefits they need out of the medication they take with the least amount of harm. Follow Lisa on twitter @LisaDolovich.
Dr. Anna Serra Martinez
Functional analysist.
Department of Health for the Government of Catalonia
Catalonia
Currently working in the eSalut area of the Department of Salut of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Dr. Martinez has been developing functional analysis tasks of the Shared Clinical History of Catalonia (HC3). In parallel to performing functional support in the interoperability project of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the Digital Clinical History of the National Health System. From her 11 years as a nurse she has been involved in specialized care in a variety of different hospitals throughout Europe.
Julie Datta
Programme manager
Health TAPESTRY Program
Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University
Julie is the Program Manager for the Health TAPESTRY program in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. Julie provides operational oversight to the Health TAPESTRY program and is the primary liaison for implementation sites across Ontario. Julie is a Registered Social Worker, and holds a Bachelor of Social Work from York University and a Master of Social Work from the University of Waterloo. Follow Julie’s work on twitter @healthtapestry.
Speakers:
Dr. Pauline Pariser
Professor
Department of Family and Community Medicine,
University of Toronto
Dr. Pariser has practiced family medicine for over 35 years and is the founder of the Taddle Creek Family Health Team. An Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, she is an award-winning teacher and in 2009 was named Family Physician of the Year for the Toronto region. In 2011, the Taddle Creek Family Health Team was recognized by the Ontario College of Family Physicians as Family Practice of the year. In 2016 the College of Family Physicians of Canada recognized her leadership work with an Award of Excellence. She is interested in advancing primary care integration and developing innovative health delivery solutions for people living with multi-morbid conditions. In 2018 she was recognized by the Ontario Medical Association with the Glen Sawyer Service Award and received the provincial Achieving Excellence Integration Award for SCOPE from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
Dr. Jocelyn Charles
Physician
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Dr. Jocelyn Charles is currently a family physician in the Sunnybrook Academic Family Health Team, the Primary Care Clinical Co-Lead for North Toronto and the Medical Director of the Veterans Program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She recently completed 2 year terms as Physician Advisor, Primary Care Strategy for the Toronto Central LHIN and Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee at Sunnybrook. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. Her clinical and academic work has been focused developing patient-centred models of care to meet the needs of patients with complex needs both in the community and in long term care.
Dr. Brad Volk
Medical Doctor
Kaiser Permanente
Dr. Brad Volk obtained a BS in Mathematics and an MD from Georgetown University. He then served as a doctor in the Navy for 11 years, including two tours in Japan and a 12-month tour in Afghanistan. Since leaving the Navy in 2011, he has practiced full-spectrum family medicine with Group Health (now Kaiser Permanente) in Seattle, WA, and on faculty for the residency for the last 4 years.
He has always thrived professionally on being in an academic environment, both as a student and as a teacher. This has included being the chief resident in a residency program, teaching at a Japanese medical school, being faculty at a family residency program, as well as clinical teaching in developing countries. He became Associate Program Director for the residency this year.
Walter P. Wodchis
Professor
Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
University of Toronto
Walter Wodchis, PhD, is Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Research Chair in Implementation and Evaluation Science at the Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners. His main research interests are health economics and financing and health care policy evaluation.
Through his research programs which include more than 30 collaborating researchers and as many trainees, Dr. Wodchis has lead several studies examining complex needs of high cost patient groups, the implementation of integrated care programs to address those needs, and evaluations for a number of integrated care programs in Ontario.
Frank Hanson
Patient
Toronto, Ontario
Frank is a retired accountant, who has been diagnosed with multiple chronic medical conditions. Married to his caregiver, Rhene, for over fifty years, Frank shares the couple’s perspective on navigating the Ontario health care system over many decades. Eight distinct attributes that have created an exemplary health care plan for him and his wife are offered along with some thoughts on the future of integrated care.
Speakers:
Damara Gutnick
Medical Director
Montefiore Hudson Valley Collaborative (MHVC)
Damara Gutnick is the medical director of the Montefiore Hudson Valley Collaborative (MHVC) where she is responsible for guiding systems and practice transformation efforts to support the transition to value based payment across the Hudson Valley as part of New York State’s Delivery System Redesign Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program. She is an Associate Professor in the departments of Epidemiology and Population Health, Family Medicine, & Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, and Director of Quality and Research at the non-profit Centre for Collaboration, Motivation & Innovation (http://www.centrcmi.ca).
An internist by training, Dr. Gutnick spent 18 years caring for patients at Bellevue Hospital, NYC’s largest public hospital, and working for NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation, where she was committed to providing culturally competent, quality care to a diverse inner city patient population, and spearheaded behavioral health integration and self-management support initiatives.
As a trainer of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and a member of MINT (The Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers), Dr. Gutnick is passionate about encouraging clinicians to incorporate the “spirit” of MI into their discussions with patients and dedicated to integrating MI based best practices into health care delivery systems to improve patient engagement in their care. She has presented MI based workshops at national and international forums including the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI), American College of Physicians (ACP), the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the MINT Forum. Dr. Gutnick is also part of the team who developed Brief Action Planning (BAP), a self-management support technique that involves using a structured step-by-step process to help individuals set goals and make concrete action plans.
Carole Ann Alloway
Co-founder
Family Caregivers Voice
Carole Ann Alloway is a retired Human Resources Manager, mother of four and grandmother of seven. Carole Ann became a full-time caregiver for her husband, Bill, who had ten difficult operations within a 7-year period. In addition, Bill’s gastro issues worsened, and he developed congestive heart failure.
She has witnessed first-hand the gaps in the health care and home care systems. Together with Sara Shearkhani, another caregiver, they have co-founded Family Caregivers Voice. Sara and Carole Ann receive invitations to speak at health conferences, hospitals, home care agencies, etc. to share their experiences while raising awareness of the importance of making the caregiver an integral part of the health care team. Both Sara and Carole Ann work closely with The Change Foundation, Health Quality Ontario, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and various hospitals and LHINs. Carole Ann recently won a Heroes in the Home award from Toronto Central LHIN.
They were recently successful in acquiring a $3M grant with Bridgepoint Hospital and Woodgreen Community Centre from The Change Foundation to improve the caregiver experience from hospital to home and beyond. Carole Ann worked with The Change Foundation to transform her Caregiver Wish List into a video, so it can be used by other caregivers and health care agencies.
She recently co-designed and co-presented a keynote speech with Jodeme Goldhar from The Change Foundation at the International Conference for Integrated Care in the Netherlands.
Cathy Fooks
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Change Foundation
Cathy Fooks joined The Change Foundation as President and Chief Executive Officer in January 2007, bringing with her proven leadership skills at a national level and more than 20 years experience in health policy research.
Ms. Fooks took on the task of working with the Board of Directors to implement its ambitious strategic plan and transform the Foundation from a granting agency into a respected health policy think tank focused on health integration and patient outcomes.
Prior to her position at the Foundation, Cathy was the first Executive Director of the Health Council of Canada where she was responsible for implementing the Council’s mandate of reporting to Canadians about health-care renewal.
Ms. Fooks has also served as the Director of the Health Network with the Canadian Policy Research Networks, and in senior roles with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), the Premier’s Council of Health, Well-Being and Social Justice, and the Premier’s Council on Economic Renewal. She was a senior policy advisor to two Ministers of Health and has served on a number of government health-care committees.
The author of numerous articles and reports on the Canadian health system, Ms. Fooks holds a masters degree in political science from Queen’s University and an undergraduate degree in political science and economics from Trent University. She has also completed an Executive Program in Change Management at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. In 2010, she also completed the Executive Program in Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management at the Harvard Business School.
Speakers:
Dr Nick Goodwin
CEO
International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC)
Nick was the co-Founder of IFIC in October 2011 and became its first Chief Executive Officer in March 2013. Nick is also the Editor-in-Chief of IFIC’s open-access and impact rated scientific periodical the International Journal of Integrated Care.
Nick holds a range of research, educational and consultation roles worldwide. These international commitments include several European R&D projects such as the EU FP7 Project INTEGRATE, the Horizon 2020 project SUSTAIN and the ICT-PSP projects SMARTCARE, BEYOND SILOS, and CAREWELL. Nick is an active member of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing B3 Action Group on Integrated Care. Nick has also been working with the World Health Organisation to support the development of its Global Strategy on People-Centred Integrated Health Services and is on the Expert Advisory Team to WHO Regional Office for Europe’s Framework for Action Towards Coordinated/Integrated Health Services Delivery (CIHSD) leading work related to change management and adoption of integrated care in policy and practice.
Over the past year, Nick has also worked as an international consultant to the Agency for Integrated Care, Singapore; the Pan American Health Organisation, Washington; the WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office; and to NHS England’s Better Care Fund Support Programme. In previous roles, Nick worked as a Senior Fellow at the King’s Fund (2007-2013) leading key work on integrated health and social care as well as a two-year Inquiry into the quality of care in English general practice. Nick has also worked as a Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2003-2007) where he directed MSc and DrPH courses and worked as a lead academic for the National Institute for Health Research commissioning key studies into the service delivery and organisation of health care. In January 2016, Nick received the Avedis Donabedian International Award for his contribution to Healthcare Excellence and Integrated Health and Social Care.
Dr Toni Dedeu
Director of Programmes
International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC)
Dr Dedeu is the Director of Programmes of the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) based in Oxford, UK and he is the former Director the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia, Ministry of Health of the government of Catalonia. Dr Dedeu is a MD (University of Barcelona), specialised in Urology and Family Medicine and he holds MScs in Health Economics, in Primary Care and in Healthcare Management.
He has professional experience spanning more than 20 years at international level in the field of quality assessment and health systems development. He has worked as policy maker, manager, researcher and implementer or health system reforms. Former Chair of EUREGHA (European Association of Regional and Local Authorities), association based in Brussels. He has also been the Director of research and knowledge exchange of the Digital Health and Social Care Institute of Scotland, in association with the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Dr Dedeu is currently involved as PI in more than ten EU projects, such as FP7, H2020, Interreg, Health Programme and also EIT Health. Along with his scientific career he has published more than 55 research papers in SCI and SCIE journals of high impact factor.
Walter P. Wodchis
Professor
Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
University of Toronto
Walter Wodchis, PhD, is Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Research Chair in Implementation and Evaluation Science at the Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners. His main research interests are health economics and financing and health care policy evaluation.
Through his research programs which include more than 30 collaborating researchers and as many trainees, Dr. Wodchis has lead several studies examining complex needs of high cost patient groups, the implementation of integrated care programs to address those needs, and evaluations for a number of integrated care programs in Ontario.
Ross Baker
Professor
Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
University of Toronto
G. Ross Baker, PH.D. is a professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Program Lead in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety. Ross is co-lead for IDEAS (Improving and Driving Excellence Across Sectors), a large quality improvement-training program in Ontario.
Ross’ recent research projects include an edited book of case studies on patient engagement strategies, a demonstration project that assesses an innovative approach to monitoring and measuring patient safety, and an analysis of inter-professional team dynamics in quality improvement.
Ross led a team that published a book of case studies in 2008 on High Performing Health Care Systems: Quality by Design. In 2015 he published an update on this analysis on key elements of a high performing healthcare systems in a paper commissioned by the Ontario Hospital Association. This analysis provided a framework for the recent OHA Strategic Plan.
Ross currently serves as Chair of the Safety and Quality Committee and board member of the University Health Network (Toronto), a member of the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council board, board and on the advisory board for Closing the Gap Healthcare.
In October 2017 Ross Baker received the Barer Flood Prize from the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research of the Canadian Institutes of Health Services Research in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to health services and policy research, policy and/or care delivery in Canada.”
Zal Press
Founding Co-Chair
Beryl Institute Global Patient and Family Advisory Board
Zal is an internationally recognized patient voice. He was the founding Co-Chair of the Beryl Institute Global Patient and Family Advisory Board. A community of practice with over 55,000 members worldwide, The Beryl Institute is the premier thought leader on improving the patient experience in healthcare.
Joining CEO’s from the Toronto Central LHIN, he was co-lead of a large scale project to co-design with patients, clients and caregivers, the integration strategy for over 180 home care, community care, as well as mental health and addiction services.
In 2011, he founded Patient Commando to amplify the power of people’s personal stories in discussions around critical health issues, such as access to treatment, system navigation and health equity.
Zal continues to act as patient and lived experience advisor in a variety of roles including advising providers seeking political positions. His website is the most diverse collection of patient stories in any medium that enrich our understanding of the lived illness experience.
Facilitated by:
Jodeme Goldhar
Jodeme Goldhar is the Facilitator for IFIC Canada’s Virtual Community and Executive Lead for Strategy and Innovation in the The Change Foundation