Digital Health Canada Faculty Members

Rod Burns received a B.Sc. (Hons) in Medical Physiology from the University of Western Ontario in 1988 and a Masters of Health Administration from the University of Ottawa in 1992. He spent 15 years working in the hospital sector in Ontario and three years in the NSM LHIN environment. He has held positions in Finance, Administration, Community Relations, Information Technology & Services, Clinical Utilization Management, Decision Support and Digital Health. Through a 30-year career, Rod has held senior leadership positions in Information Management portfolios developing and implementing multiple IS and corporate strategic plans. He is currently providing digital health consulting at a provincial level in Ontario. Rod is active in the professional community and a strong believer in on-going leadership development. Along with memberships with various professional associations, he served as Board Secretary for ProResp Health in Sarnia, Board Chair of the Huronia Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic, Past President of the Ontario Chapter of the Health Information and Management Systems Society and Past President of the Southwestern Chapter of the Canadian College of Health Service Executives. He was one of the first Canadians to earn the CPHIMS-CA credential in 2005, his CDPSE and CHCIO and CDH-E credentials between 2015 and 2020. Rod earned his FCCHL in 2018 and the FHIMSS credential in 2022 as a culmination of a career commitment to ongoing professional development. Rod’s current professional interests lay in consumer health, health system leadership, digital health, and institutional knowledge management. He continues to support health service leadership development through his ongoing involvement as a CCHL CHE Program Evaluator and Fellowship Program Evaluator and Mentor. He is also a member of the CCHL Fellows Council.

Patrick has more than 20 years of experience in the field ofinformation privacy. An expert in the development and implementation of privacy programs, he is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and CertifiedInformation Privacy Professional/Canada (CIPP/C).In his current role asCEOof Privacy Horizon,Patrick is responsible for developing the Company’sPHI Framework (product)and strategic roadmap for providing privacy compliance expertise and practical solutions to early stage, small &medium size healthcare companies.In his previous role as the Senior Program Director for the Identity, Access and Privacy portfolio at eHealth Ontario, he is accountable for strategy and planning, product management and adoption of the provincial client and provider registries within the health care sector. Prior to that, he led the privacy office at eHealth Ontario, and built the Province’s first “eHealthPrivacy Centre of Excellence”–establishing eHealth Ontario as a leader in the development and implementation of privacy best practices that would support the paradigm shift brought onby the creation of an integrated provincial electronic health record. Before joining eHealth Ontario, Patrick held a number of executive positions in the private sector focused on the development and implementation of privacy and data protection programs across the Canadian health care sector.

Dennis Cheung holds a Bachelor of Health Studies from York University and a Master of Health Informatics from the University of Toronto. He has gained extensive experience across various healthcare settings, including hospitals, non-profits, startups, government agencies, and international organizations. Currently, Dennis serves as a Healthcare and Data Consultant while maintaining academic affiliations as an adjunct faculty member in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Additionally, he instructs in the Health Informatics program at McMaster University’s Centre for Continuing Education and is a professor at George Brown College. Dennis specializes in teaching data management, interoperability standards, and data standards within the health informatics field.

Hélène is a strategic thinking Health Care Professional with over 30 years of experience in digital health, including clinical informatics, strategic leadership, strategic education/learning, change management, continuous quality improvement, and project management. Hélène has extensive knowledge of digital health applications, development, and clinical systems transformation. She is current with healthcare strategies and thinking resulting in requests for performing peer review of articles for Canadian College of Health Leaders (CCHL) journal, and abstracts for Digital Health Canada eHealth Conference, and CCHL conferences, in addition to her activities as Board Member of the CCHL journal. She was also a member of several HIMSS international task forces, moderated educational sessions at HIMSS conferences, educational webinars and eHealth Conferences.