Awards

December 16, 2020 – Today we are pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Canadian Health Informatics Awards, both Individual and Team. Click on the links below to learn more about the winning individuals and projects.

2020 Canadian Health Informatics Awards winners

Individual Awards (sponsored by Digital Health Canada)

• Dr. Richard Lester (WelTel Incorporated and WelTel International mHealth Society) is the winner of the 2020 Clinical Innovator Award. The Clinical Innovator Award recognizes an individual who has shown outstanding leadership in Canada in advancing the use of digital health or virtual health in clinical practice resulting in improved provider and patient experiences and outcomes.
• Kathy Steegstra (Provincial Health Services Authority) is the winner of the 2020 Digital Health Executive of the Year Award. Digital Health Executive of the Year Award recognizes an executive whose outstanding contributions as a leader have helped advance digital health in Canada.
• Pooja Patel (Provincial Health Services Authority) is the winner of the 2020 Emerging Leader Award. The Emerging Leader in Health Award recognizes individuals who are in the first five years of a digital health career and have demonstrated leadership and achieved early success.
• Gillian Sweeney (Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Informatics) is the winner of the 2020 Leadership in Digital Health Award. The Leadership in Digital Health Award recognizes an individual’s outstanding contributions as a thought leader to advance digital health or virtual health in Canada.

Team Awards (sponsored by TECHNATION)

• The 2020 Innovation in Care Delivery Award goes to the BC Innovation Hub 1 Project (Divisions of Family Practice, TELUS Health). The Innovation in Care Delivery Team Award honours private and public sector team effort by recognizing a for-profit healthcare IT company and client team that has successfully implemented a new, innovative health IT solution within the past 12 months.
• 2020 Patient Care Innovation Award goes to Western Hospital ED Decanting Project (Health PEI/Western Hospital/Maple). Patient Care Innovation Team Award honours private and public sector team effort by recognizing a for-profit healthcare IT company and client team that has successfully implemented a health -IT solution that has positively impacted patient care in innovative ways within the past 12 months.
• The 2020 Project Implementation Team of the Year Award (Team Award) goes to eOrder (The Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information (NLCHI) and Orion Health). The Project Implementation Team Award honours private and public sector team effort by recognizing a for-profit healthcare IT company and client team that has successfully implemented a health IT solution at a healthcare organization within the past 12 months.
• The 2020 Corporate Citizenship Award goes to Gevity Consulting Inc. Corporate Citizenship Award recognizes leading for-profit healthcare IT companies that are committed to and passionate about health informatics and have invested in contributing to the industry in Canada. This annual award provides client organizations and business partners the opportunity to nominate private sector companies who have demonstrated a very high level of commitment to HI in the past 12 months.

The Selection Process

The Canadian Health Informatics Awards (CHIA) pay tribute to excellence, leadership, and innovation in health informatics and digital health. An impartial adjudication committee of health leaders evaluate CHIA nominations and choose the recipient(s) for all awards. In the event that all submissions in a particular category are deemed to not have met the criteria, the adjudication committee may choose not to give out the award.

Thank you to the 2020 adjudication committee members Naima Salemohamed (Telus Health); Doug Tessier (Makobe-Montreal Health Systems); Jeannie Borg (Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care); Patricia Moreno (Sinai Health System); Emily Hogan (KPMG); Chris Carvalho (Carveira Group); and Mary Eileen MacPhail (Nova Scotia Health). A special thank you to adjudicator Margarita Loyola, who found time to volunteer as an awards adjudicator while managing the details of retirement from Island Health. Enjoy your retirement, Margarita!

Download a PDF of all the winners.

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