Digital Health Canada volunteers are the backbone of our Education program. The materials used in our Core Health Informatics (HI) courses and in the qualifying exam for achieving the Canada Supplemental (CA) portion of the Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems – Canada (CPHIMS-CA) credential are all developed by volunteer subject matter experts like Christine Couturier, Director, Public Health Informatics, Population and Public Health at Alberta Health Services.
In addition to volunteering her time as an instructor for the Core HI course, Christine chairs the Digital Health Canada CA Exam Item Writing Committee, attending at least four hours of scheduled meetings each month as she leads the team developing exam items and submitting them to the Exam Development Committee.
Christine also represents the CA Exam Item Writing Committee at the Exam Development Committee meetings; contributes updates to the Exam Committee’s Terms of Reference; and monitors existing CA Exam materials and processes to eliminate irregularities and provide user experience-related system feedback to the vendor.
Volunteering for Digital Health Canada has been so rewarding. I get to meet new colleagues from across the digital health space, and every hour I spend with these colleagues brings me new learnings—from shining a light on what’s happening in other areas of the country, to learning something new about this field through our conversations and volunteer work.
With over twenty years of experience in the health informatics space, Christine has worn many hats, from project manager, organizational change management specialist, process improvement practitioner using a combination of LEAN and Six Sigma methodologies applied in the healthcare context, to designing clinical systems to support practice. She has held a number of leadership roles over her career. Recently, Christine has become focused on finding ways to embed action on social and preventive factors in clinical information systems to ensure that addressing the social determinants of health and other patient risk factors becomes a standard part of clinical practice.
Thank you for your contributions, Christine!
The opportunity to volunteer is one of the benefits of Digital Health Canada membership. Learn more about volunteering opportunities here.