CHIEF Member Spotlight

As a purpose-motivated leader passionate about improving the health and well-being of Canadians, I’ve navigated an intentionally unconventional career spanning commercial, public, and not-for-profit sectors. This unique blend of business acumen and mission-driven leadership began in ‘big pharma’, gaining cross-functional expertise in regulatory affairs, sales, and marketing. In the latter half of my career, I’ve applied that experience to the not-for-profit health sector to drive revenue growth and strategic partnerships nationally. With a style that is consultative and collaborative, I’m eternally inspired by the African proverb: “Alone, we go faster. Together, we go further.” HealthPartners vision is simple—building a healthier Canada. Our mission is that every person has the health support they need by supporting the groundbreaking research, care innovation, and programs and services that address chronic and critical illness across our Canadian Health Collective of 20 member health charities. With a legacy that began in 1988, we’ve since transformed the lives of people living with serious illness through workplace fundraising with our Certified Health Partner employers. Digital health plays a critical role across all we do. As an organization, we are increasingly integrating digital tools and insights into our strategies. Our commitment to digital health reflects our belief that technology, when harnessed effectively and inclusively, is a powerful enabler of equal and equitable health and wellbeing for every person living in Canada.

I began my career as a clinical engineer and worked at GE, where I trained as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. That training opened the door to leading quality improvement projects across Canada and the U.S., often tied to major technology implementations like PACS and MRI systems. I noticed early on that new technologies energized teams, and that excitement created opportunities to embed process improvements alongside the “shiny new tools.” That’s really where I cut my teeth in digital health in the early 2000s. Over time, I became more focused on quality improvement and how digital systems could transform care delivery. My career path took me to Alberta, where I worked on provincial IT and digital health projects, and later back to Ontario, where I saw the chance to drive regional digital health consolidation and help shape the digital journey for patients and providers across our geography. As a regional health centre, RVH serves not just our city but a large surrounding geography that relies on us for care. Our vision is to mirror the flow of patients with digital supports, ensuring that no one has to leave our region to access high-quality, connected care. We’re building that through initiatives like CARE4 (a shared digital health platform for hospitals and hospices in our region), cybersecurity programs, and e-referral networks. Our approach is to wrap digital health around the entire continuum of care—whether patients are in hospital, hospice, or receiving community services. It’s about delivering a level of digital maturity you’d expect from a major urban centre, but in a more rural and regional context. Innovation is part of our culture and strategic plan, and the organization is committed to being bold in making big moves that improve care locally.

As a business leader managing the Public Sector in Canada, its key to understand our healthcare system, the unique IT ecosystem that supports it and how to be a contributing member. I’m passionate about bringing Google’s investment in healthcare into this Canadian ecosystem. Google is coming to market in Canada with a dedicated healthcare team of business and engineering resources that will be leveraging our R&D efforts in Canada and the US. Our unique investments in data science, AI, genomics, and critical computing infrastructure are all available to the broader healthcare ecosystem in Canada via this team.

I began my digital health journey in the early 1990s as a Cytotechnologist at the Halifax Infirmary in Nova Scotia, when the hospital purchased its first Cerner PathNet Laboratory Information System. Curious to learn more, I volunteered to become the subject matter expert for its implementation—an experience that set the course for my career. In 1997, I joined Cerner Corporation, working in several roles in the US before returning home in 2002 to continue with Cerner Canada. After leaving Cerner in 2011, I spent the next 11 years with two consulting firms, helping hospitals and health services make the most of their technology investments. In May of 2020, I joined ELLKAY as the Director of Strategic Relationships. Today, I serve as Vice President, International at ELLKAY, where I work with organizations around the world to support their digital health needs. Throughout this journey, my passion has remained the same: helping healthcare providers find and implement the right technology to deliver better patient care.

ELLKAY’s vision is to be healthcare’s trusted data partner—helping organizations seamlessly connect, move, and unlock the value of their data so they can focus on delivering quality patient care. The ELLKAY vision aligns perfectly with my personal dedication to digital health. Throughout my career, I’ve been passionate about ensuring healthcare organizations leverage the right technology to improve outcomes and enhance the patient experience. At ELLKAY, I’m able to bring that mission to life through helping hospitals, labs, and health services around the world address challenges, such as data archiving, migration, and interoperability. By combining deep technical expertise with a commitment to partnership, ELLKAY empowers providers to make informed decisions, maintain continuity of care, and meet their goals in an evolving healthcare landscape.

I’ve been fortunate to have a varied 20+ year career in biomedical research, technology development, business and corporate development, in both public and private sectors. I have always been drawn to the cutting-edge of discovery and innovation in healthcare, and right now there is no more exciting space than digital/AI technology.

GE HealthCare’s vision for precision care focuses on digital/AI innovation as a core value-enabler, creating new clinical utility across our device portfolio, patient care pathway tools, and enterprise software solutions. An over 100-year legacy of technology leadership coupled with a laser focus on unlocking the potential of AI for precision care is the ideal environment for a health innovation junkie like me.

I currently lead the strategy Microsoft Health industry initiatives in Canada, including defining and articulating the Microsoft vision for the future of Healthcare, and how Microsoft products, technologies and partner solutions will make it a reality. My background and career has been mainly focused in channel alliances, sales, digital strategies and business management. I have worked for a number of large technology companies starting with Computerland in the late 80’s selling PC’s and services. I then moved on to work for a number of large technology organization like Xerox, Digital, Compaq and for the past 20+ years at Microsoft. In building my career I realized that working in Public Sector allowed me to make a greater impact in society rather than just helping corporations become more profitable. The journey then exposed me to healthcare and I quickly realized that health was one of the least automated industries and lagged other industries in the use of technology, this was the place for me! I have spent the last 10+ years as the Industry Lead for healthcare in Canada. Helping shape and modernize the Canadian healthcare system through better Digital health is a passion for me. I am actively involved in a number Health Informatics groups like Digital Health Canada, CHIEF (advisor), and active ITAC health board member to better networ, learn from others and share with ideas with other industry leaders.

We know that technology has a role to play in accelerating progress for solutions to address healthcare concerns and challenges. Looking ahead, we expect to see healthcare organizations continue to use newly implemented technology tools throughout the Covid-19 recovery period and into the new normal. Companies that need to accelerate their digital transformation during this time will continue to rely on trusted partners who can support their trust, security, and technology adoption into the future. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare will make it easier for them to remain agile and focus on what they do best—delivering better experiences, insights, and care.

Prior to co-founding Ocean, I spent 15 years in various enterprise software verticals. Compared to other industries, I could see that the Canadian digital health landscape was rife with disconnected data silos, and that both patients and providers were losing out in an otherwise increasingly connected world. We started Ocean to connect patients and providers via cloud-based software that could talk to the major EMR systems in Canada, and we focused on making stuff that would be useful in a real clinical environment, guided by my brother Doug who is a practicing physician and wrote an EMR in a past life. Our mission at OceanMD is to connect healthcare providers and patients to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare in Canada. That means dedication to interoperability, not just via technical specs, but also a business model that promotes partnerships, open APIs and responsible data governance. Patients own their data, and we are stewards of it, so we have a moral and social obligation to ensure their data moves around the system, safely and securely, to the sole benefit of the patient.

I started in healthcare over 30 years ago, working as a registered nurse. After 15 years at the bedside, I moved into management. At the time, a few major health IT initiatives were in their infancy across the country. I led several implementations and initiatives that included everything from provincial reporting systems to implementing electronic tools within clinical environments. That work sparked my interest in digital health – specifically, in informatics. It’s also what eventually brought me to Healthtech. I started as a consultant and today I hold the role of President. I chose to work in digital health/health IT consulting because of the impact of the work we do. With every engagement, we’re improving the lives of patients and their families by enabling organizations to use innovative technologies. It’s really rewarding to guide leaders through a successful implementation – getting them to a place where their providers and staff are effectively using technology and data to enhance care delivery.

At Healthtech, we’re passionate about improving healthcare and believe digital health plays an important role in realizing this vision. We also believe an organization’s digital health platform should be designed with its unique people and processes in mind. That’s why we’ve put together a cross-functional team of data, operational, and clinical experts to help healthcare leaders get data where it needs to be, automate intelligently, and empower end users with insights. Our ultimate goal with every digital health project is to enable innovative and efficient care for our client partners.

Following my undergraduate degree in Computer Science, I was working in the digital health sector as a consultant to a government health department for approximately seven years. In that role, I witnessed all of the investments that were being made into the healthcare system, yet became frustrated when trying to get care for my own young family. I saw the digital health sector as a place where I could make a big difference. VeroSource was founded with the goal of empowering people and unlocking the potential in digital healthcare, and this remains our company’s vision to this day.

VeroSource’s vision statement is “We will empower people and unlock the potential in digital healthcare.” Since 2014, we have worked to execute on this vision. Our solutions focus on enabling secure access to healthcare data and we have been able to empower people by putting healthcare data in their hands. We look forward to supporting our vision with patients, clinicians, decision-makers, and more as we continue to grow and expand across Canada.

In addition to our digital health solutions, VeroSource supports healthcare in our communities by donating resources (both volunteer hours and funds) to causes including Meals on Wheels, local food banks, youth sports, and more.

Interestingly, my journey started at a very young age; I grew up in hospitals as my mother was a nurse and, later, became a Director of Nursing at a Montreal hospital. As a University student studying Biochemistry, my interest in healthcare grew and I began working in hospitals as both an Operating Room Technician and as a Patient Custodian in mental health wards. A while after, after completing my MBA, I began working for what was at the time a big 8 consulting company. My prior experience in healthcare, as well as my educational experience, equipped me for understanding both the technical challenge and the business concerns I was facing. Still, I always had a soft spot for healthcare. I continued working within the business world in technology areas (from SMB’s to a Norwegian multinational) until ultimately returning to healthcare as a consultant in the area of healthcare document management, dealing with software applications that automate the “paper world” of healthcare… Years later, I took the plunge and co-founded Cercle Groupe in Montreal, Quebec with a fully bilingual team.

Cercle Group is the Canadian system integrators for Quest Diagnostics’ fully Integrated Enterprise Content Solutions system. We have an experienced Canadian team including industry professionals with over 20 years of expertise, and have worked closely with Quest Diagnostics for years, offering Professional Services including project management at the level of implementation and application enhancement, consultation and coaching toward the efficient use of Enterprise Content Solutions, training in the administration and control of Enterprise Content Solutions, and in-house development of electronic forms and workflows. Cercle Group is also the Canadian channel partner for Apollo Enterprise Imaging, offering professional services in the areas of enterprise imaging and clinical multimedia management. In short, Cercle Group focuses on the clinical operational aspects of integrating multiple hospital information systems by optimizing business processes and workflows, in both clinical and healthcare administrative environments. Most recently, understanding and appreciating the ongoing importance of continuously growing your knowledge, I’ve completed studies in Artificial Intelligence technologies with MIT.

Cercle Group aspires to improve the healthcare experience of the individual from a digital perspective – this includes patients, clinicians and administrators alike – all while advancing national hospital technology standards and offering top-performing solutions for common obstacles. This includes assisting in accessing and using patient data; knocking down the healthcare silos and the walls of inter-provincial sharing of health care projects and experiences; making the patient the center of their journey; using AI to more efficiently manage and predict healthcare outcomes; and using our operational clinical experience to improve the success of deployments in healthcare technology projects.

I have over 30 years of healthcare experience, 15 of which I worked in acute healthcare settings as a registered nurse. I joined Healthtech in 2006 as a consultant, and have since moved into management roles and eventually becoming vice president. In my role as VP, I lead the Clinical Services team at Healthtech. I provide senior-level advisory services to our client partners to support our team and clients in achieving successful results related to clinical best practice and standards for electronic documentation, while ensuring clinical transformation is embedded into technology adoption initiatives.

In 1999, when I moved to Toronto to begin my career in technology, my first role was supporting customers in Atlantic Canada—some of them I still work with today nearly 25 years later. I’ve always been impressed with the evolution of my customer’s technical skills over the years, and their passion for using technology to bring together various teams to solve common issues. As my career changed from IT hardware to consulting services to software, and now to cloud—I continued to see digital health making a difference in the lives of everyday Canadians. That’s perhaps the most rewarding part of my career, seeing how big and small changes in tech have had a profound impact on healthcare in Canada. Now with cloud services, I see those changes expedited and making a difference in this country and globally. We’re just at the tipping point of interoperability and that for me signals that there is still more work for me to do with my customers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a dedicated life sciences and genomics practice composed of folks who have been in the industry for years. It includes a team of people who have been bedside with patients, including physicians, and nurses. We also have a large number of researchers. For me, one of the delights of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Health & Life Sciences practice is that we get to work with a large ecosystem of customers and partners. When we look at the mission or vision of every single organization we work with, they always reference to the word “patient”. That is very important to AWS because the work we are doing with these organizations is intended to benefit people.

Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 175 fully featured services from data centers globally. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing start-ups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—are using AWS to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster.

To continue helping customers during these unprecedented times, AWS is collaborating with healthcare providers, public health organizations, government agencies, and life science businesses around the globe to support their efforts to cope with the ripple effect of COVID-19. This includes providing customers in the most affected regions with technical support and AWS Promotional Credits to help cover costs of initiatives related to COVID-19 response. This includes the $20 million AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative supporting customers bringing better, more accurate diagnostic solutions to market faster.

We are helping organizations quickly scale their technology and infrastructure to help maintain clinical and operational continuity for our global healthcare system. Increasing contact center efficiency with web chatbots and voice conversational agents will supplement staff to help triage patients, protecting and scaling clinical staff through remote visits via telemedicine, enabling a remote work force and global research collaboration with cloud desktop and application streaming solutions, are all opportunities for healthcare organizations to work together on during this difficult time.

Healthcare providers around the world are using AWS to deliver improved care to their patients by reducing the time and effort required to run existing workloads, providing access to powerful new analytics capabilities, all while meeting the security and privacy requirements.

When I joined TELUS many moons ago, I had the opportunity to support an initiative to bring internet connectivity to rural communities in British Columbia in partnership with the Government of BC. This led to early telehealth deployments and evolved to my involvement in transformative new deployments of remote patient monitoring, personal health records, interoperability solutions and virtual care in Canada. I realized how gratifying it is to make an impact on the lives of Canadians. TELUS Health’s vision is “to be the most trusted wellbeing company in the world.” This is an inspirational goal and it originates in our important work in Canada. In order to achieve our vision TELUS Health continues to invest in new digital health solutions that will improve the lives of Canadians; enabling seniors to live comfortably in their homes; empowering citizens with access to their personal health data; providing virtual and physical mental health supports and improving health system interoperability. TELUS Health supports my dedication through listening to the feedback I provide from our clients and adapting to the digital health needs in Canada.

I have Finance degree from University of Calgary, and spent most of my career working for small technology start ups. Most of my working experience has been related to Business Intelligence, Analytics, IT Services, and Technology. I spent 3 years early in my career working for Calgary Lab Services which gave me exposure to healthcare. I joined Strata Health 7 years ago as the VP Technology and found my time work at the lab was very useful domain experience. In July of 2019, I took over as President and CEO of Strata Health. I like working in digital health because there are such great opportunities to make a big difference in Healthcare with digital technology. Strata Health is using digital technology to enable better access to care. We focus on enabling more effective and efficient transitions of care as a patient moves from one healthcare provider to another. Healthcare challenges are universal and it is very rewarding to provide our services around the globe in more than 5 countries now and counting. Strata continues to invest in our products and people to ensure we are the best of what we do.