Celebrate Today, Create Tomorrow – Digital Health Canada is 50!

This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor errors.

Chris Carvalho: Talking to my kids about this and they don’t actually see digital as part of the equation anymore. Like that’s foundational. That’s table stakes for them.

Katie Bryski: Hello and welcome to Digital Health in Canada, the Digital Health Canada podcast. My name is Katie Bryski.

Shelagh Maloney: And I’m Shelagh Maloney. This year marks Digital Health Canada’s 50th anniversary. And we’ve got 50 reasons for you to tune into the podcast. Reason number one, which of course is in keeping with our theme of the podcast, celebrate today and create tomorrow.

So we invite you to sit back, relax, and do just that!

Katie Bryski: All the way through Season Two, we’ll be exploring how far we’ve come and reimagining where we can go next, as an association and a sector. And to kick off the festivities, we are honored to welcome two Digital Health Canada Presidents from the association’s early and current days.

A very warm welcome to Denis Protti, professor Emeritus of Health Information Science at the University of Victoria, and Chris Carvalho, CEO of Carveira Group Consulting Inc.

Shelagh Maloney: I was saying off the air that I’m so pleased that you folks are here. Because Denis, you were sort of the founding members of Digital Health Canada called COACH back then, and, uh, you created the UVic program.

And Chris, of course, you’re a graduate of the UVic program and you’re the current president of Digital Health Canada. So it’s, it’s a wonderful circle and it’s a great, great way to start off our second season. So thank you and, and welcome to you both.

Chris Carvalho: Yeah, thank you. Excited to be here.

Shelagh Maloney: One of the things that we always do in just starting the podcast is we always ask people to talk a little bit about their career journeys and how they started and where they ended up, and what were their maybe stops along the way.

So, Denis, why don’t we start with you?

Denis Protti: I, uh, graduated University of Alberta in mathematics in 1965, and I was fortunate in my last year to take two computer science courses, offered a number of jobs all related to the two computer science courses. I wanted to take the job in Connecticut with a life insurance company, because I wanted to be an actuary.

They wouldn’t let me come back to, uh, Alberta to get married and take a few days off. So I ended up in Shell, Canada and Calgary where uh, my wife and I got married, uh, in July of 65. After two years in Shell, Canada, I found myself in Winnipeg 1967. And to my surprise, not knowing why I was going to Winnipeg, I ended up in the medical school, starting a first and only computer department in a medical school at that time in Canada, we built up quite a little department, 17 or 18 people. When I left in 72, I found myself across the river in St. Boniface General Hospital. I think they hired me as, uh, head of data processing, but agreed quickly to a change of, I think, director of information systems.

So I was there for six years and in 79 through all sorts of interesting ways and mysterious ways, I ended up in Victoria at the Royal Jubilee Hospital as the head of Information System. The Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, those days, was quite a few years behind where I had left.

Job at University of the School of Public Administration. So I started at the hospital in July of 79 and I started university in the evening, first evening in September, teaching a graduate course in management information system. While I was there, a committee was formed to look for a new director of a new program called Health Information.

I was on the committee and uh, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I was taken aside and they said, “We think you should step off the committee and put your name in.” I did. I was then chosen to become the director of the program, and I started this, the program in July of 81. I think we became a school in 1983.

And I was there until 2010, uh, when I retired from the university, from the teaching portion of my life. I stayed scientifically active by research and writing and consulting until 2017, and then I settled down because I was running into conflicts with my time. I wanted to spend more time on genealogy than working in health informatics.

So. That’s where I’ve been. And, uh, that’s the process I went through.

Shelagh Maloney: That’s a very circuitous route, but what a journey. I wanna talk to you about the early days. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Uh, Chris, why don’t we talk about the journey?

Chris Carvalho: That’s a tough one to follow. You should have let me go first, but I’ll do my best.

And honestly, like thanks to Denis, uh, for starting the program where I probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you guys today as a graduate. So. My, my career journey went to Uve, um, and actually wanted to become a, a sports agent, so nothing to do with healthcare at all. Realized that I probably wasn’t cut out for that world and didn’t do too well in my classes that would’ve got me there and somehow just fell into the, the health informatics space.

A friend of mine was actually just came off a co-op and was just telling me about the different opportunities and the curriculum and, and just the, the job opportunities that were there. So, ended up taking a couple electives and really love what I was learning and then started to apply myself, got into the program and the rest kind of history from there.

Through that, obviously you do three co-op terms, so did one with the health authority one with. Consulting company and that really took me down that path. So at that time, courtyard Group who would always come into the health informatics program and recruit heavily, I was lucky that we had that exposure through a number of different courses and then got in in the consulting world that way, learned the business.

And then actually moved out to Edmonton for, uh, for my first job. So spent a number of years there from Courtyard. Ended up going to work for MedAccess, just wanting to get more EMR project management implementation experience. Did that for a few years. During that time, courtyard got bought up by Telus Health

So then I went back to Telus Health to help build their consulting practice. Did that for a few years and then, uh, they ended up acquiring a number of EMR vendors and they wanted me to go back and work in that space. I had already tried that and wanted to get something new. So I ended up, uh, actually launching my own consulting company, uh, back in, uh, 2014.

Um, and have been doing that ever since. So have worked in a variety of different initiatives. Digital transformation, implementation, just what every system. So I’ve never been a product specialist, but more of a process specialist in terms of how do you actually take a product and put it in, understand the workflow and the change management and project management required to do so.

Yeah, I’ve just been really fortunate to be able to apply that skillset and, and experience across a number of different jurisdictions, provincially, nationally and even internationally in some cases. So. A very lucky journey that I kind of was in the right place at the right time, uh, to even be able to get into the health informatics program, which, which took me down, uh, the path that I’m in now.

Katie Bryski: Similarly circuitous, but impressive journey. It’s always interesting when those career paths have the sort of hard right turns, right, those crossroads that take you somewhere you never expected. And I’d love to take the conversation back to the early days of the school for health information science.

Denis, I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the impetus behind starting the program, some of the conversations that were happening at that time.

Denis Protti: Okay. The roots of the uh, program go back to 1963 actually. There was a medical records program at Notre Dame University, which was a small Catholic university in Nelson, BC, and in 73, they lost their accreditation and subsequently the university closed down.

So they, uh, shut down completely. In 1977, they submitted a proposal to UBC to move the program to the, uh, university of British Columbia. That was rejected and turned down the head of the, uh, university’s commission at that time was a physician.

I think there’s some merit in this. So he convinced the president of, UVic, Dr. Howard Petch to take a look at this program. He said, but change the focus. Don’t focus on records. Focus on information. He formed a committee in 78. Well, just late 78 to 79. The committee did put a proposal together, a three page proposal.

Saying, here’s a new program we’re recommending called Health Information. So in 79, the committee, uh, was struck and someone heard about me or whatnot, and it was asked me to sit on a committee, on a selection committee. I did, I agreed, and I, so I sat on as a community representative on the committee.

And then two, the committee members took me to lunch and said, number of us think you should get off this committee and put your name in to be the director of this new program, which was a high risk decision on my part because I didn’t have a PhD. I finally decided, okay, let’s do it. And um, I was subsequently chosen to be the director and favorably enough for me.

The committee was happy with everything I said and what my visions were and what my experience was and whatnot. They were just concerned, could, could this man teach? He has no academic experience whatsoever. Fortunately, the School of Public Administration has permitted my teaching evaluation from the four courses I had taught over the over the years, and they were good enough to say, okay, he can teach.

And I was given the job. I left the hospital and started in July of 81. There weren’t many people working in the field in those days, especially academics. And the academic who influenced Moore from Germany managed to recruit him and his family from Heidelberg to move to Victoria, and he was a keystone eventually in our program.

And we went from there. We started with, you all know, with a Bachelor of Science and Health Science only. And uh, we did our first graduation class in I think 86. And of course the school now is, is quite large. I think there’s nine or 10 full-time faculty members and three or four graduate programs including a PhD program and, uh, thousands of graduates out in the field.

Shelagh Maloney: What an accomplishment. I, you know, you must be a sort of a, a proud father in all this. And you, you sort of started it, you think about the number and the not only number, but the caliber of the graduates in that program. There’s so many really strong leaders that go on to have great success and great careers.

And so, you know, Chris, it’s funny that you talked about having almost accidentally a friend, sort of, you got into the program. Can you talk about courses or professors or do you have a story about Professor Protti that you’d like to share?

Chris Carvalho: Oh yeah. I mean, I was actually laughing about this ’cause looking at the questions, it just brought flashbacks, dentist, your classes were probably the only one that I actually did all the readings for, ’cause I remember you had these flashcards. You would ask a question and you wouldn’t even see if anyone put their hand up, you would just pull a flashcard. And we just knew that there was a chance that we were the ones that were gonna have to be able to be put on the spot and, and come up with an answer.

And, and a lot of times there was industry experts that were coming in, so it was more in our senior courses where we were lucky to have like the CIOs and DMs and just the access to the network that Denis was able to bring in. So it was almost like you were getting job interview questions live in the class, and you wanted to make sure that you were fully prepared.

So that always kind of stuck with me prepping for this. I was like, I gotta make sure I, I review this all. ’cause you know, if Denis pulls out those floss cards, they gotta be ready. But I think that just speaks to the preparation, like the, the program really. Allowed for and still does. It’s gradual to be prepared for work in the field.

I mean, luckily there’s lots of jobs in the industry, but you also come out of it with three co-op terms, a lots of very tangible experience in the business, technology, and on all healthcare content. So you’re coming out of it ready to work. And already at that caliber. So I think a lot of us that graduated from the program, just some of those skills that you need in the workforce, we were able to build those up in the, in the early days and then continue to leverage that throughout our careers.

Luckily we also had exposure to a number of key industry, both public and private sector players that we were familiar with. So when you, when we were able to go and talk to them after class, and then we applied for a job or we had a project. There was always that reputation and familiarity because we came out of the program and I think in many cases, a lot of the, those that were teaching or the, or the faculty, they’d probably get calls about, you know, what were these students like?

And, and they probably helped to advocate for, for some of us. So yeah, just a really neat. Culture that that was built. Like it’s, I think my graduating class was maybe 10. So, you know, you, you got to know the the profs very well and spent a lot of time learning and understanding from their experience and you know, asking for advice on like where to go after and who should we talk to and what type of job should I get into.

And then even staying in touch when you were early in the career and even now, I think now the graduate classes are 50, 60, which is amazing to see the growth, but just a real family kind of feel. So anyone that’s part of that hemp alumni, it’s uh, you got that connection, which has been helpful for sure.

Katie Bryski: Yeah, I remember once hearing sort of a list of graduates and it almost sounded like a who’s who of Canadian Digital Health Right. A lot of really familiar, and like Shelagh said, well established, well-known names. And Chris, you were just there talking to the class at UVic, like was that kind of family vibe still the same?

Was it kind of a homecoming for you?

Chris Carvalho: Yeah, it was, I got, I got invited to be the keynote speaker at the alumni lunch a couple weeks ago, which was actually talking about my career journey and how the hemp program had an impact on that. And it was nice. Like you, you know, there’s obviously lots of familiar places and, and lots of individuals that get to work with on a daily basis.

Many have connections nationally, so you get to see them at these different conferences, but also anyone new. It’s like if you say you’re a graduate of the hinf program or you’re a hinfer. You immediately have that connection and that family feel, which is still evident, uh, going back. So always love, you know, walking around campus and, and connecting.

And then Shelagh and I just had the opportunity to go speak with a class last week. So I think that’s also one of the nice things they do is they try to bring individuals back as much as they can so that if you’re a graduate or you’re connected to the program, you want to be going back and seeing who the next leaders are and just getting a sense of what they’re thinking about and, and learning about.

So. It’s always fun to head back to campus.

Shelagh Maloney: Maybe we’ll switch gears talking about beginnings in first. So of course, Denis, you were a, one of the founding members of Digital Health Canada, which back in 1975, 50 years ago was called COACH. And I was talking to a, a group very early on in my, in my role as CEO of Digital Health Canada, and I was just reminding people of the old name and COACH stood for the Canadian Organization for the Advancement of Computers in Health.

Even when you say that acronym, it sounds so dated. And actually I have through our anniversary celebrations, we’ve managed to dig up the very first letter from the founding COACH, president Stephen Husing. And if you’ll indulge me, I just wanna read, it really talks about the emphasis for putting the group together.

It says, if the process of learning is to be meaningful. It’s essential to have a contribution not only from the data processors, but also from the administrators and the medical and paramedical professionals. I thought that was interesting. And then the very last sentence is the history of computers in the healthcare delivery system is a short one.

In our country, the increased utilization of computers is not only self-evident, but inevitable. We hope that COACH can serve as a focal point for the process of sharing our thoughts and learning from one another. That really resonates. Even 50, I mean, the terminology is a little bit different, but it certainly resonates.

And so, Denis, I wonder if you can talk about the early days, and I think there were seven, eight people around the table. What can you share with us around those early days?

Denis Protti: Okay, happy to, happy to the roots for COACH, now Digital Health Canada. Go back to 1969. In the, in the sixties, there were no user groups of any kind anywhere.

And if there was a user group. It was always vendor based. So IBM had one of the bigger ones in an organization called Echo, electronic, computer Oriented Healthcare or something like that, and they started meeting in 79 and they started attracting Canadians as well because there was nowhere else for so.

Steve Huesing was one of the early people to start going from Canada in 73. Bob Zuckerman became the first healthcare industry coordinator for IBM, and Bob was obviously very involved in Echo as well. Well, uh, Bob and Steve started encouraging some of us to go to Echo, and Echo was always held in the wintertime.

San Diego or in Miami or New Orleans where it was nice and warm. So a number of Canadians went at the sort of seedling meeting. Nine Canadians were there at that particular meeting. I’m not sure why I was there. I really don’t because I, at the time, was at St. Barnabas Hospital and we didn’t have an IBM anyways, nine of us were there.

Steve pulled us. Big round table in a dining room of wooden, no, there was no cloth on it. And he talked about whether we should start a Canadian echo and there were nine of us and we all thought, yeah, well that’s definitely worth pursuing. And uh, 75 we started having meetings and six. Just for your interest, the six were Marie Barrett, who was the director of Systems Management for the Ministry of Health in Ontario.

Uh, Rick Hopkins was the director of finance for District United three in. Steve was the assistant executive director of the hospital in Edmonton. We had two Albertans, Rob Palmer was the director of project. Center, the Department of Government Services. He had a broader mandate, not just health. I was there as Director of Information Services from, and Bob was there as the healthcare industry coordinator for IBM.

So the second one started meeting, and even one of the meetings was even held in the dining room of my home in Winnipeg. I think that was the meeting where we went through all sorts of different names, a lot of laughs, going through various names of what we’re gonna call at the organization and ended up with COACH.

And, um, we ended up with corporate colors of red and white because Marie Barrett was wearing a red dress with white polka dots, uh, at that. So that was how we, uh, we.

75, 76, we had our first conference in Ottawa, Toronto. I think Ottawa and 20 Canadians came, and we had made a decision that COACH wasn’t going to be a Canadian version of Echo. That COACH was gonna be vendor independent.

That only lasted one year. 77, We did invite vendors, so we had our first meeting and Steve was our first president. I was vice president and I became president of 1978. And Steve at that point then moved to become executive director of COACH, and he also later became the president of Echo in, in the United States the first non-American to do so.

Our first group, and from from then on, uh, we held annual meetings across Canada. I can remember one meeting in Nova Scotia and Halifax while I was president that, uh, I got in late, quite late at a very late meal in the hotel, and, uh, spent the whole night in three bathrooms. I had in the presidential suite of the hotel, I had food poison, which we determined was from the clam that I ate.

Anyways, we tried to hold our meetings across Canada and, uh, you guys are now doing even better than we did.

Katie Bryski: I mean, it’s such an impressive journey, and I think, like Denis, you and I were chatting a bit before the recording about how some of those early decisions, like the vendor independent, have such ripple effects later on, and it’s, it’s interesting to think about what the organization could have looked like, had different decisions been made around that dinner table.

Denis Protti:. Five of us were very much in favor of Steve, still be, but in Steve agreed and in favor. So it was unanimous by the board. We be vendor independent to his credit, stepped back from the IBM focus.

Katie Bryski: Yeah. And then that path obviously brings us to today the association now called Digital Health Canada, and its current president you, Chris.

And I’m curious if you can tell us a little bit about your interest in Digital Health Canada and how you started getting involved.

Chris Carvalho: I mean, I, I’ve been fortunate to have worked for organizations that have been members for, you know, since early days in my career and. Many of them were involved in Digital Health Canada and, and COACH before that.

So it was always, uh, sort of a, a core component of any kind of our professional development. Like the early days in the in courtyard, the consulting company. Through that just got exposure to the resources, the network, the conferences, the connections and, and the community. And, and honestly, those are the reasons why I still stay involved and, and have always wanted to be involved because it is a.

Core component of our industry. I think that’s a nice thing about Digital Health Canada community. We all kind of know each other like similar to I was talking about like the family kind of feel that the hemp program had. This was just a larger scale of that. So like going back to or going to eHealth every year, you really do know so many colleagues from across the country that that network really is what drove me to continue to be involved.

And then, uh, just being able to be able to participate as a board member and give back to an organization that I had gotten so much from was really why I wanted to be part of the board and, and, and help out. Um, so I’ve been a board member for a number of years now. This is my almost first year done as the president.

And it’s amazing to see it with such a small team, the amount of work that has been done, very, uh, you know, enlightening to hear the, sort of the early days and, and how we got there. And even seeing some of the things. It’s, it’s actually really nice, Denis, like some of the things that you guys talked about, we, we definitely see those as part of our core culture.

And then now obviously with the foundation that that’s been laid by, uh, the team and, and bringing Shelagh in, uh, over the last few months, I think there’s some really exciting time for, for us as an association and for an industry.

Katie Bryski: Maybe we can push that forward, like we’ve looked at the past, maybe we can look a little bit into the future.

And this might be a question for Chris, you and Shelagh actually, in terms of your, your hopes and your aspirations for the association.

Chris Carvalho: Yeah, absolutely. So we’ve done a great job in terms of ensuring that we’re continuing to provide value for our members across the four pillars that we focus on. But I, I think we’re really just scratching the surface on a lot of that stuff.

Like the, the neat thing about our association is that. We represent members across all facets of digital health, which is a pretty unique and broad membership base. So how do you actually satisfy the interests of everybody in that space? I think we’ve got a lot of interesting and exciting things in the academic space.

We’ve always done a good job in providing value to public and private sector at a larger scale. I think there’s a whole mid-range like startup, medium-sized company that I think we can do a lot more in. And we’re starting to see expansion there as well as attraction from those that may not have traditionally been in the healthcare space, but that are interested in applying their skills and expertise in, in the digital health sector.

So. Who knows what it’ll look like in another 50 years. But I think, you know, the, the, the future’s bright and the organization is in a, a very strong place to be able to start building on a lot of what’s happened and take us to that next step. But Shelagh is, is the one that’s now tasked with, uh, turning all those random comments into, into action.

So, yeah, happy for Shelagh to provide her thoughts here.

Shelagh Maloney: You know, it’s interesting when I think Denis, the two or three tenets that were the starting four COACH and that really, you know, Steve’s message talking about the diversity of the community. We’re not called data processors anymore, but it’s that whole idea, right?

You need to bring the administrators, IT folks, the clinicians. And that tenant has not changed. And the other thing that I remember, and I’ve been going to COACH conferences, you know, I joined Kai High or my early twenties. I went to my first COACH conference and yeah, it was like the community and the sense of purpose and the, the a learning and the network.

And I think that hasn’t changed. I like to think, and you know, we don’t have 120 people. We’re at an at a zero plus to that, and we’re not seven, eight people anymore. We are almost 8,000. So we’ve come a long way, but I think those basic tenets hold true. And I think one of the things that we have an opportunity to look forward to at Digital Health Canada is even playing more of that leadership role and educating the public and influencing policy and creating awareness of digital health and all of the benefits to Canadians, to patients, to providers, and improving that patient journey.

So. I agree. It’s the education, networking, learning opportunities and that leadership and voice and influence, I think are the two areas where we have so much potential and the world is changing so quickly and it’s, and giving people the tools and providing them value to deal with and cope with that pace of change that we’re seeing that’s accelerating so much.

And Denis, I’d be curious to, to sort of get your reaction to all that and what you are most proud of and where you think the future is going or any advice to us as we carry on the torch, as it were.

Denis Protti: You know, I can’t really give you any advice. The organization is so successful. The school is so successful.

For me since 2017, I have, I have not stayed current at all, so I don’t, you know, I used to get dozen newsletters and journals and stuff. I don’t, I don’t get any of those anymore. So I’m not current, so I can only feel good because I’ve seen the progress that you’re making. I got one other anecdote, uh, types leadership, which I.

When it all came down, what was the most important thing in in health informatics, and I always said it was leadership. When I was interviewed at the Royal Jubilee Hospital, after the first interview, I left with a number of conditions. One, it was to have a second interview to come back with my wife.

Another one was that I would continue to go outta the hospital to usually to, uh, Toronto or Ottawa, two to three, maybe four times a year. Someone off’s extent, not at the hospital’s extent, because I was quite involved. I was, you know, chair of Stats Canada committee and I was involved with variety of Department of Health committees and so on.

Anyways, um, executive director to me said to me, why would you do that? Why would you ever leave Victoria? I had difficulty answering that question well, I said, well, it, it’s part of my life. It’s part of my profession. I have to stay involved professionally and I have to do what I can to contribute. He said, I can’t understand it.

This man had no vision of future. He just couldn’t believe anyone would leave Victoria, let alone the aisle. A little anecdote, can’t I can’t, should.

Shelagh Maloney: Chris, we’ve got the man, Denis Prty has told us keep up the good work. So I’ll take it, we’ll give you a, a last word as well, Chris. So any sort of thing that you wanna build on or any comments that you wanna make,

Chris Carvalho: uh, I think you’re just asking, you know, reflections on like what the next years to come in, in the conversations.

Like, you know, what are we surprised by or proud of, or frustrated, you know, again, talking to my kids about this and you know, after they got over that someone actually wanted to talk to me on a podcast, it was. Asking them like, what is digital health? And I think the biggest realization is like they don’t actually see digital as part of the equation anymore.

Like, that’s like foundational, that’s table stakes for them.

So you know the name COACH, when we talk about computers and health, I feel like we’re almost at that same place with digital health, where we keep. Focusing on that part where that’s just part of, of everyday life right now. So I’m excited to see how this next generation actually pushes us to just move beyond digital health or these different health apps, like that’s part of their world that they live in.

And I’m hoping that we can start thinking about it in that way as well, because sometimes I think we’re our own worst enemies in terms of actually progressing and like so much stuff is happening and, and we have the opportunity to really make an impact. But you know, we just probably gotta look at it in a different way.

And sometimes the kids help us to understand that a little bit. So hopefully Denis, and, you know, if we do this again, you still feel that we’ve continued to grow the organization at the same success and speed. So just appreciate, uh, hearing the background and, and insights that you had as well.

Katie Bryski: And to close us out, if you had to pick one word to describe what digital health means to you personally, what would that word be?

Denis Protti: Well, for me the word would be support. I felt that our entire reason for being was to support the, the healthcare process, all of the people providing healthcare, whether it’s in acute care or community care or primary care or public health. To me it was always a question of support.

Chris Carvalho: Yeah. So for me, you know, similar, it was empowerment.

So I mean, really what the field that we’re in is, you know, helping those that are providing direct care to patients. Empower them to be able to do their job more efficiently, more effectively. Getting them the information and the data that they need to make, you know, decisions. So I think that’s the neat part about the industry is that even if you’re a non-clinician, you can still contribute to that patient’s care.

But it really is making sure that everything we do is, is focused in on empowering those that are part of that care team.

Katie Bryski: Thank you both so much for joining us for this episode. It’s been such a fascinating look back at where we’ve come from and an inspiring, I think look to where we could go in the future.

Shelagh Maloney: Let me add my thanks. Uh, Denis, thank you for the VIC Program. Thank you for Coat and Digital Health Canada. And thank you both very much for, uh, joining us here today kicking off season two 50th anniversary edition of Digital Health in Canada, our podcast. Thanks so much.

Wow, that was a great conversation. A great discussion. I love that those two gentlemen were the first podcast of the season and the whole theme about celebrate today, create tomorrow. We had a such a nice trip down memory lane, and Denis was such a fountain of information of everything that he knows.

And then, you know, seeing the spectrum with, with Chris sort of being a product of the program at UVic, but also digital health a little bit too, right.

Katie Bryski: Yeah. That aspect of community and purpose really came through like even before we started recording. And you and Janice were talking about people you have in common and people you’ve seen recently, and I was just sitting here feeling so lucky to be part of this community and so lucky to be part of these conversations.

It was interesting that that came through both just in the pre-show chat. It came through when we were talking about UVic. It came through when we were talking about e-Health and Digital Health Canada. Like it really does seem to be part of the sector that we’re in.

Shelagh Maloney: I agree. And one of the things, when you think about the eHealth Conference, I mean, I, and I’ve been going to the COACH and the eHealth Conference and it’s our 25th anniversary for this one, as you know, but they’ve been going on for a long time and, you know, there was nine people at the first one. There was always a like a, it’s a small community, but even when we hit like 12 and 1500 people that we’re getting at the conferences now there still really is that sense of community. And you know, the digital health world in Canada, it’s relatively small still and people really do have that.

There’s no secret handshake, but there’s a little bit of a, a love, you know, ’cause I think we all have very diverse backgrounds and it has been forever. Thus, you know, even based on that letter that Steve wrote. But that culture and that feeling of belonging is really important. And I think, and I hope that we will continue to maintain that for years to come.

Katie Bryski: It was also super interesting that for both of them, um, when we asked what digital health meant to them, it was really that, that supporting, that empowering. It hit, right? They said that, and it was like, “Yeah, I feel that,” and I feel like that’s certainly why I got into this field when I did my own hard right turn on my career path.

Shelagh Maloney: Well, and it’s interesting that even, um. So, you know, I was on the board of Digital Health Canada a a number of years ago, and when we were doing the strategic planning exercise, one of the, what does the future look like and our slogan or whatever we called it at the time, it was called Bringing Digital Health Mainstream or something like that.

So it gets to a little bit to the comment that Chris made, right? It’s, it’s not digital health, it’s not e-health, it’s just health.

Katie Bryski: Although, I don’t know if you can drop the digital from your name. I think, if you’re just Health Canada, the federal government might have something to say about that.

Shelagh Maloney: That name is taken.

Katie Bryski: I was thinking though, we’re actually remiss. We said there were two, uh, digital Health Canada presidents on the call, but there were actually three, because you have been a past president of Digital Health Canada.

Shelagh Maloney: I have indeed. Yeah, that’s true. And in fact, at our conference this year, we are inviting all the past presidents to come back, and I think there were just around 30 or so of them.

A lot of people are coming and we’ve got great messages from those who are not able to make it. And I think that sort of speaks to the community as well.

Katie Bryski: As we kick off the year of celebrating Digital Health Canada’s 50th anniversary, what else do we have planned? Like how can people celebrate? How can people get involved?

Shelagh Maloney: Yeah, thank you for asking that question. I think the most important thing, if I could only say one thing about the 50th anniversary is we wanna engage our membership. So you may have been seeing a number of happy anniversary videos that we’ve been publishing and people are just, you know, sending videos and we’ve got some articles coming up and some ads in Canadian Healthcare Technology magazine.

Well, we’d be talking about the past and the future. You and I, we have our 50 people interviewed in 50, uh, what are we calling it?

Katie Bryski: Try to talk to 50 people on the podcast this year.

Shelagh Maloney: Yeah. And interviews and just getting people to share their memories and what does digital health mean to you? And that’s the most important thing.

And you know, we really wanna reach out also to media and celebrate and get the word out there beyond our community as well.

Katie Bryski: And this episode will air about a week before the e-Health Conference. I know we will both be there. I will have my mic. So as part of our talking to 50 people over the course of the year, we will be trying to get interviews with folks on the floor walking around. So if you do see us, please come say hi and share your own good wishes for Digital Health Canada.

Shelagh Maloney: Yes, and if you have any ideas for the 50th anniversary, uh, series or season, we’d be happy to hear those as well.

Katie Bryski: And with that, this has been such a great way to kick off the celebration, and we will see you next month with reflections from e-Health.

Until then, happy anniversary to Digital Health Canada. We’ll see you soon. Right here on Digital Health in Canada, the Digital Health Canada Podcast. Podcast. Thank you for listening to today’s episode, digital Health Canada Members. Can continue the conversation online in the Community hub. Visit digital health canada.com to learn more.

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