Featured Speakers
Mike Nader
Mike Nader is the Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer at the University Health Network. He has operational responsibility for clinical operations at the Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. He also oversees the patient experience and health professions portfolio, the Joint Department of Medical Imaging, the Laboratory Medicine Program, Pharmacy, and UHNs Lean Process Improvement.
With 25 years of experience, prior to his current role at UHN, Mike held progressive leadership positions in Vancouver. Mike holds a Bachelor of Science and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of British Columbia. In 2005, he obtained a Master of Arts in Health Care Leadership and Training from Royal Roads University. Mike also completed his Executive Lean Leader and Executive Lean Director designation in 2008 and 2010, respectively.
Mike has been a surveyor with Accreditation Canada since 2007 and has participated in surveys in a number of programs across Canada. He currently serves as a Board member on Plexxus and Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada (HIROC).
Carol Santalucia
Carol Santalucia is a seasoned healthcare leader with a passion for and commitment to enhancing the patient experience. During a 28-year career at Cleveland Clinic, Carol held various service excellence and leadership roles, including the formation of Cleveland Clinic’s Service Excellence Department and creation of the Communicate with H.E.A.R.T.® Program. In 2011, Carol began her own consulting practice, Santalucia Group, LLC, where she and her team worked nationwide to improve the experience for patients, families and employees at over 40 organizations. Recently Carol returned to Cleveland Clinic as Director of Service Excellence and Culture. She is happy to be back “home” and excited to continue enhancing Cleveland Clinic’s culture through empathetic communication.
Carol received an MBA in Healthcare Administration from Cleveland State University and a BS in Psychology from Denison University. She is a past President of the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy and the Ohio Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy. Carol is a Board Member of the American College of Healthcare Executives of Northern Ohio and serves on the Executive Board of The Beryl Institute. She is also the President and Founder of The Carmella Rose Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people navigate the healthcare system.
Alan Dubovsky
Alan Dubovsky is the Chief Patient Experience Officer for Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles, California. In his role, Alan is responsible for all patient experience strategies and associated operational improvements. His scope covers all service areas of the medical center including inpatient, ambulatory, emergency, and ancillary services. Alan joined Cedars-Sinai in November 2016, with 15 years experience dedicated to improvement of patient experience in healthcare. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Alan served as the Director of Operations at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, Georgia. In that role, Alan was responsible for the departments of Patient Experience, Physician Engagement, Special Constituent International Patient Programs, Referral Management, Education and Training, Leadership and Talent development. Alan completed his undergraduate degree in Business Administration at the University of Georgia and his Executive Masters degree in Business Administration at Emory University.
Julie Drury
Julie Drury is the Chair of the Minister’s Patient and Family Advisory Council for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. Julie is passionate about the patient / family / professional partnership and experience in health. In her role, she facilitates and provides the patient and family perspective in health care policy and decision making. As the mother of a child who was diagnosed with SIFD, a rare form of mitochondrial disease, Julie has particular experience in system navigation, complex care, care coordination, palliative care and patient safety. Julie is an experienced health policy analyst and is respected for her highly collaborative work style, stakeholder engagement, and leadership skills. Julie’s personal and professional experience are focussed on advising government on key health priorities that have a real impact on patient care and experience in Ontario.
Claudia Houle
Claudia Houle is a patient that has been dealing with multiple chronic health issues for most of her life. Ever since she became a chronic patient at 14 years old, she knew that she wanted to be involved in patient partnership, even though no such thing existed at that time. As she got older, Claudia worked towards her patient partnership goal. She obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and another one in Nutrition, becoming a dietician in an academic health centre in Montreal, Que. While she was partnering with her own patients, she realized that the impact would be much greater if things could change at a higher level of the health care system. She then became a patient partner at the medicine faculty of the University of Montreal where the patient partner movement was just beginning. After having worked on many patient partnership projects at the University of Montreal for the past seven years, she became the expert patient at Health Standards Organization and its affiliate Accreditation Canada. Claudia strongly believes that health organizations – from the direct care level to the governance level – should embrace patient partners as they provide valuable insight on the lived experience of the health care system, which can have a direct impact on the quality of care.
Mary Jane McNally
Mary Jane McNally is the Chief Patient Experience Officer at William Osler Health System, with accountability for Patient Experience, Health Equity and Inclusion as well as Patient Registration. During the last three years she is most proud of the co-creation of a patient and family engagement strategy within Osler and across the CW Region in partnership with the CW LHIN.
Her passion for optimizing a more patient centric system of care is informed by 30 years in progressive leadership roles within multi-site academic and community hospitals. Prior to her current role, Mary Jane was the Senior Director, Professional Practice at University Health Network with a focus on quality, professional standards of practice and innovative models of care.
Keith Taylor
Keith Taylor has been an active Pfa at Thunder Bay regional health sciences Center for 6 years. He is the co-chair of the patient-family advisory council, a voting member of the senior management council, past member of the board quality committee and recent member of the boards quality of care committee (possibly the first and only patient on such a committee).
Presently he sits on the Strategic Plan Steering Committee, CEO search committee, and the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute Strategic Plan Steering Committee. Keith has been involved in hiring panels for all high level hires (VPs, mangers, directors and CEO). He presents PFCC to all new employees and board members as well as all new learners at northern Ontario school of medicine. He is also a member of Accreditation Canada's working group to set the standards for patient centred care, and a recent recipient of CPSI’s National Champion Award as a leader in integrating the patients’ voice into health care. Keith has presented our philosophy of care provincially, nationally and even internationally.
Shirley Fenton
Shirley Fenton has over 30 years of experience in business development and information technology focused on innovative Internet applications, community information portals, and new tools and devices for health care. Her interests are Innovation Science, Health Informatics, eHealth, Intelligent Communities, Community Informatics and Communities of Practice. She is involved in research programs related to technology and its deployment. She is active in building research and technology transfer relationships with government and industry. She is a Research Associate, Computer Systems Group, University of Waterloo and Vice-President, National Institutes of Health Informatics. She serves on the Centre for Distance Education Health Information Management Program Advisory Committee and previously, on the HIMSS Ontario Board of Directors (2015-2017). She received the Zonta International Women of Achievement Trailblazer Award (2011). She was the inaugural recipient of the HIMCC Human Foundations Award (2016). She loves playing tennis. Shirley obtained a Bachelor of Environmental Studies (Honors) and a Masters of Arts from the University of Waterloo.
Mireille Brosseau
Mireille Brosseau works alongside patient partners and staff at Health Standards Organization and Accreditation Canada to strengthen partnerships between those who experience, organize and provide healthcare services to improve the quality and experience of care for all.
From 2014 to 2016, Mireille led an Experience Based Co-Design project at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, testing the effectiveness of the approach to involve patients, families and staff in the identification of improvements needed in Oncology services and the co-development of solutions. From 2010 to 2013, she oversaw the Patient Engagement Projects (PEP) initiative at the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement, which supported decision-maker led teams from healthcare organizations to uncover lessons learned and promising practices that engage patients in the design, delivery and evaluation of health services. Prior to this, she coordinated the curriculum and mentoring components of the Executive Training for Research Application (EXTRA) program for Canadian healthcare leaders.
Mireille holds an M.A. in Counselling and Spirituality from Saint Paul University in Ottawa and started her career as an interfaith chaplain at The Ottawa Hospital. She then moved on to gain experience in adult education and business development in both the private and public sectors. She has specialized training in public engagement, quality improvement and project management.
Christine Kouri
Christine began her health career as a pediatric nurse at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Following a return to studies to complete a Master’s Degree in Health Administration at Ottawa University, she developed the patient relations role for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Over the years, she has expanded CHEO’s focus on, and her leadership of, the patient experience. This includes programming for patient relations, patient engagement, health equity and inclusion, Spiritual Support and French Language Services.
Seulana Taha
As a 2nd generation Canadian to Lebanese parents, Suelana Taha’s passion for equitable care led her to establish a Syrian Refugee Navigator role at CHEO in response to the large number of Syrian Refugee children needing care in Ottawa. The focus of her work in reducing systemic barriers quickly led itself to all newcomers at the hospital. Most recently her work is now expanding to promote health equity for populations along the social gradient, including vulnerable youth and Indigenous. Her role supports the hospital’s vision for the best life for every child and youth.
Joel Lexchin, MD
Joel Lexchin received his MD from the University of Toronto in 1977. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University in Toronto Canada where he taught health policy until 2016. In addition, he has worked in the emergency department at the University Health Network also in Toronto for 30 years. He has published two books since 2016: Private Profits vs Public Policy: The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Canadian State was published by University of Toronto Press in 2016 and Doctors in Denial: Why Big Pharma and the Canadian Medical Profession Are Too Close for Comfort was published by Lorimer in 2017.
Sean Patenaude
Since 2013, Sean has been deeply involved with the mental health community in Toronto, facilitating photography workshops at World Pride, Workman Arts, and other organizations. His greatest joy lies in helping others discover their own talent and creativity through image-making. He has shared his lived experience with mental illness and addiction with students and healthcare providers through training programs, conferences, and lectures at the University of Toronto, and at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, where he manages the Employment Works! Program.
Nicole Bartlett
Nicole Bartlett developed the first Occupational Therapy role in the Addiction Medicine Service at The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in 2012. She provides individual and group therapy to promote substance use recovery with a focus on vocational rehabilitation, relapse prevention, and skill building in areas of self-care, leisure and productivity. She is also a member of an intensive consultation-based team that provides assessment and treatment recommendations for individuals with complex pain and substance use concerns (IPARC). She has completed training in Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and furthered her skills in non-pharmacological pain management.
Nicole has experience conducting Needs Assessments at a program level and continues to actively seek client feedback on their experiences in treatment to identify gaps in healthcare. Early in her career, she identified that art was being underutilized as therapeutic modality and she decided to combine her early passion for creative arts with her OT training to co-facilitate programs designed to integrate creative expression into the recovery journey. Nicole has seen firsthand how sharing personal stories through photography has positively impacted the recovery of many of the people with whom she has worked and she continues to be passionate about sharing this experience with others.
Andrea Marshall
Andrea Marshall is a seasoned public relations professional with 15 years’ experience in both private and public sector industries. Currently, she is Director, Communications and Public Affairs at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores), a public specialty hospital that provides specialized assessment and treatment services for people living with complex mental illness.
Ms. Marshall is responsible for developing, implementing and evaluating corporate communications strategies and programs in areas such as stakeholder engagement, brand and reputation management, employee communications, media relations and creative services.
As part of her portfolio she also provides leadership for the Centre of Education and Organizational Development as well as Volunteer Services, Spiritual Care and Conference Place.
Prior to Ontario Shores, Ms. Marshall worked at Ontario Pharmacists Association and Edelman Public Relations.
Ms. Marshall is second Vice-President of the Board of Directors for the Denise House, an organization in Durham Region that provides shelter and support for abused women and children.
Gregory Webster
Greg Webster is CIHI’s Director, Acute and Ambulatory Care Information Services (AACIS). In this role, he leads strategy and operations for CIHI’s national hospital, emergency and ambulatory care databases and clinical registries. He is currently co-lead for modernizing CIHI’s data supply and access. His portfolio includes CIHI’s pan-Canadian inpatient, day procedure and emergency department databases (Discharge Abstract Database, Hospital Morbidity Database and National Ambulatory Care Reporting System) and related e-reporting products, as well as CIHI’s two clinical registries: the Canadian Organ Replacement Register and the Canadian Joint Replacement Registry. He also provides leadership to CIHI’s Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) program and aspects of CIHI’s Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) program. Mr. Webster has over 20 years of experience using health data, information and evidence to improve health and health care.
Brenda Perkins-Meingast
Brenda has over 25 years of experience as a healthcare leader with a proven record of innovation and leadership across the continuum of care. She has strong leadership strength in strategic planning, program development, quality, planning and operational management. She is results-oriented, enthusiastic, and collaborative and possesses an enabling and positive leadership style.
Brenda has led teams to surface and develop change leadership capacity with a focus on patient-centered relational care as a basis for systems change. She has also been able to impact “front-line” ownership influencing patient safety utilizing a variety of engagement strategies.
Currently, Brenda is the Director, Practice Based Education for the University Health Network, a multi-site academic health science centre and the Lead for Caring Safely Education.
Joe Gorman
Joe Gorman was appointed Humber River Hospital’s Director of Public and Corporate Communications in (add Month) 2017.
Joe leads a portfolio that includes corporate communications, reputation management, community relations, spiritual care, as well as health equity and inclusion.
Joe is well known as a connector and community leader who moves people to action. His leadership style is one that thrives on creating key partnerships and has been instrumental to introducing local residents to health care at North America’s first digital hospital. He works with key internal and external stakeholder to advance Humber River Hospital’s mission by implementing bold and innovative development, marketing, media and public relations strategies.
Darryl Mathers
A one-time journalist, Darryl has spent more than 12 years as a communicator in the mental health field developing a passion for telling stories and sharing experiences related to recovery from mental illness.
In his role at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores) in Whitby, Ont., Darryl plays an active role in bringing patients and families together to share their experiences in an effort to educate and inspire others.
His favourite tools to engage patients and families are meaningful hospital projects, first-person patient blogs and guest appearances on the #MindVine Mental Health Podcast, which is produced by Ontario Shores.
Bousy Al Ibrahim
Bousy Al Ibrahim is a brave single mother who shepherded 6 children between the ages of 2 and 11 into Lebanon to escape the Civil War in Syria in 2013. Two years later, they came to Canada through the Private Sponsorship Program to Ottawa where she is supported by her neighborhood sponsors. She continues to advance her level of English through classes. She has learnt to drive and has obtained permanent residency in Canada . One of her twins has a global developmental delay and complex medical needs. In order to thank CHEO and Canada for the welcome and care for her family, she has given back to the hospital by sharing her story and experiences as a family advisor. Her 5 other children are thriving and doing well in school.
Jack Woodman
Craig Earle
Dr. Craig Earle is a medical oncologist and health services researcher, practicing at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre in Toronto. He is Vice-President of Cancer Control at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Earle originally trained and practiced in Ottawa, after which he spent 10 years between 1998 – 2008 in Boston at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. Between 2008-2017 he was Director of Health Services Research and Head of Clinical Translation at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.
Selina Brudnicki
Selina Brudnicki is the Program Lead, Digital Patient Experience at University Health Network, and recipient of numerous innovation, impact and leading practice awards. Her healthcare and digital innovation experience position her as one of Canada's leading authorities on patient real-time access to their health information and co-design/collaboration with patients. Committed to digitally enabling patients and their caregivers to be more proactive and confident in managing their health, have safer outcomes and be valued partners in their care, she has been sharing her experience and expertise in local, national and international forums.
With over 25 years of experience in healthcare and digital innovation, Selina held progressive positions in private and public sectors. She holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from Athabasca University, Bachelor of Applied Science in Human Nutrition from the University of Guelph, and received her Project Management Professional and LEAN Healthcare Green Belt designations in 2006 and 2015 respectively.
Kathryn Parker
Dr. Kathryn Parker received her PhD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in 2006. Her doctoral work focused on the development of an enhanced model for program evaluation which examines the value of measuring cognitive “readiness” when determining the merit of a continuing education program. She received her Master of Arts in Measurement and Evaluation from OISE in 1999. Kathryn has presented her work at various national and international conferences. She has presented posters illustrating her research on the stages of change model and the use of this model in program evaluation. She as also conducted numerous workshops on statistical techniques, research methodologies, needs assessment in continuing education, outcome measurement, measuring readiness to change and program accountability.
Kathryn began working in the area of theory-based program evaluation in 2002. She has worked with numerous academic groups to facilitate and direct program evaluation efforts. These groups include the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, Centennial College, George Brown College, and the Michener Institute where she served for seven years as the Senior Director, Scholarship, Assessment and Evaluation. She has a keen interest in the construction and measurement of program performance and outcome indicators as well as evolving the practice of theory-based program evaluations. Her primary scholarly interests include the development and evaluation of innovative methods of program evaluation and change leadership in healthcare organizations.
In addition to her scholarly work, Kathryn currently serves as the Senior Director of the Teaching and Learning Institute and the Simulation Lead at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.
Amir Karmali
Amir oversees client and family-centred care initiatives at Holland Bloorview. He manages the hospitals Family Leadership Program, is the staff lead for the Family Advisory Committee and has been instrumental in the development of family engagement in research frameworks specific to the Bloorview Research Institute, where families consult on all aspects of research conducted at the hospital.
Amir led the launch of the client and family-centred care staff award and was the enrollment lead for the newly launched connect2care client and family health portal. He is a certified simulationist and has been a key team member in the development and delivery of simulations to train staff internally and province wide on family-centred service delivery and best practices which have won the 20 Faces of Change award and international Sherman Award for Patient Engagement. Amir is also father to 15 year-old twins, of which one is a Holland Bloorview client.
Patrice Gillbert
Patrice Gilbert holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Université de Sherbrooke. Patrice has worked many years as a software engineer. Prior to joining Taleo Corporation in Québec, where he moved his way up with different roles within the company until his move to Munich as a Director of Product Development for Eastern Europe.
Upon returning to Québec in 2009, Patrice decided to devote his varied experience to serving the province’s physicians and founded PetalMD. Today, PetalMD represents the largest network of Canadian physicians, with more than 37,000 health professionals. PetalMD is known as one of Canada’s most innovative digital health companies and continues to grow by actively improving the healthcare system.
Mary Gavel
Mary Gavel has been a caregiver for her husband during his healthcare journey at University Health Network (UHN) over the past year where he has received care at Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. In her caregiver role, Mary has been a strong voice, advocating the benefits of myUHN, a secure website at UHN that allows patients (and their authorized caregivers) to see appointments and results in real-time. Mary is currently a member of the UHN SPARK Co-Design Committee representing the voice of patient caregivers.
With over 25 years work experience in the healthcare sector including leadership roles in patient experience and privacy, Mary has been a passionate voice for real-time seamless access to health information and believes that this enables engaged patients leading to safer outcomes and improved patient experiences. Mary’s passion for optimizing real-time access to health information is informed by her leadership roles in privacy. She is currently at Hamilton Health Sciences in the role of Privacy Lead for CritiCall Ontario where she continues to support the vision of privacy as an enabler of timely, quality, safe healthcare.
Jen Novitski
Jen Novitski, MBA, BSN, RN is a Clinical Solution Executive Lead for IBM’s Watson Health Provider business, whose assets and capabilities support the transformational change underway in healthcare delivery and payment reform. Jen is a frequent industry speaker and travels to organizations across the globe to share her expertise in Healthcare Information Technology including: EMRs, Interoperability, Population Health, Analytics, Patient Engagement and Care Management.
Prior to joining IBM, Mrs. Novitski spent 7 years at Cerner Corporation where she worked with large healthcare organizations to develop their strategic direction and vision. She holds a Master of Business Administration in Healthcare Management from the University of St. Mary’s, with a focus in Population Health. She also has a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from William Jewell College and a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations and Marketing from The University of Central Missouri. She is licensed as a Registered Nurse in the State of Missouri. When Jen isn’t travelling to meet with healthcare leaders, she spends her time at home in Kansas City, Missouri with her husband and four-year-old
Bev Johnson
Beverley Johnson is a cancer survivor. Since 2014, to help ease the cancer journey for others, she has taken on the valued role of Patient and Family Advisor with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.
She is also a long-time Registered Respiratory Therapist. She is a proud mother of two, and an active member of Bosom Buddies of Nova Scotia, a Breast Cancer Survivors Dragon Boat team since 2014.
Laura Burnett
Laura Burnett is the Director of Cancer Information & Support Services at the Canadian Cancer Society. She holds a BScN from McMaster University and a MPH from the University of New South Wales. Laura’s career has spanned many health and human environments in both Australia and Canada through her work in program management, research and consulting. Her primary passion however, has always been the development of programs to support those living with cancer. In her current position, Laura is pleased to be working with a talented team that integrates evidence-based practice with person-centred program development and management.
Vanessa Amodio
Vanessa Amodio is an occupational therapist, registered with the College of Occupational Therapists of Ontario (COTO) and has experience working in community health, particularly with the adult/geriatric population. She received her Master of Science Degree in Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy from the University of Toronto. Her graduate work focused on the narratives of Ontarians with a work-related traumatic brain injury (TBI). Her subsequent work as an occupational therapist and case manager in the auto sector allowed her to facilitate multiple services and lead an interdisciplinary team of clinicians in supporting individuals and their families.
Furthermore, her work in the community extends to teaching practical solutions to older adults. Since working in the ABI lab, under Dr. Angela Colantonio, Vanessa is pleased to be applying her clinical skills and knowledge to a research study which examines how gender influences health outcomes for men, women, and individuals outside of the gender binary with TBI.
Ivanka Hanley
Ivanka Hanley is the Manager of Education within the Caring Safely Education Team at University Health Network (UHN). Ivanka has over 8 years of healthcare experience, specifically in the field of Patient Safety, Quality Improvement and Accreditation.
Ivanka obtained her Bachelor of Science with a specialty in Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa then moved to Toronto to pursue a postgraduate diploma in Wellness and Health Promotion, which resulted in an internship at UHN. In 2014, Ivanka successfully completed her Masters in Adult Education and Community Development through the University of Toronto, a goal stemming from her love of teaching.
Ivanka was successful in pursuing the role of Senior Education Specialist in November 2017 and was later promoted to Manager in September 2018. Current responsibilities include leading the Safety Coach Program across the 4 UHN hospitals and supporting the development and implementation of High Reliability Caring Safely education for staff, physicians, leaders and learners.
Sarah Stevens
