François Champagne, PhD (Chair)
Full professor
Interdisciplinary Health Research Group
University of Montréal
Dr. François Champagne is full professor of health care management, health policy and health care evaluation in the Department of Health Administration, researcher in the Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire en santé (GRIS), and collaborator in the Unité de santé internationale at the Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal where he was program director for the PhD in Health Care Organization (Public Health) from 1986 to 2000 and was director of the Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire en santé from 1993 to 1997. Dr. Champagne was a FRSQ research scholar from 1983 to 1994. He has published books in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese on epidemiology in health services management, research methods, evaluation, quality assurance, and health care organization performance. His current research interests are in the area of strategic management, interorganizational networks, integrated delivery systems, organizational performance and the use of evidence in management. He was one of the co-leaders of HEALNet, a Canadian network of centres of excellence dedicated to research on optimizing the use of research funding to improve decisions in the health system. Since 1976, he has repeatedly acted as a consultant to health care organizations and governments in Canada, France, Africa, Brazil, Haïti, the United States and China.
Jean-François Boivin, MD, ScD, FRCPC
Full Professor
Department of Epidemiology
and Biostatistics
McGill University
Jean-François Boivin is a full professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University, a senior researcher with the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Community Studies of the Jewish General Hospital (Montreal) and a medical consultant on infectious diseases and the organisation and evaluation of preventive services at the Public Health Directorate, Montreal-Centre.
He is a physician (Université Laval, 1973) and holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology (Harvard University, 1981). He is also a public health specialist (Université de Montréal, 1990). His research activities currently include studying the health of street kids and evaluating hospital emergency services.
Dr. Jean-Louis Denis
Full Professor
Department of Health Administration
Université de Montréal
Dr. Jean-Louis Denis is a full professor in the Department of Health Administration, and a researcher with the Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire en santé (GRIS) in the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Montréal.
He received his Bachelor's degree in anthropology (1982) from Concordia University, his Master of Science in Health Administration (1984) and his PhD in community health (1988) at the University of Montreal. Currently, his research focus is on management and organizational issues in the health care system.
Dr. Denis holds a Chair in the transformation and governance of health organizations from the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) and CIHR. This research has led to training and research programs on managing change in health care organizations, evaluations of strategies for managing transformation and developing new governance structures, and an examination of the role of research in developing organizations.
Dr. Denis is pursuing a variety of research objectives through his Chair program. Current topics include the analysis of health care reforms and restructuring, the innovation process in health care organizations, and the institutionalization of knowledge-based changes.
For more than 15 years, Dr. Denis has taught health administrators and researchers about the transformation of organizations and health systems. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and is the academic coordinator of the EXTRA program, an initiative that trains executives about the use of research-based evidence in health care organizations.
Dr. Tom Feasby
Associate Dean
Faculty of Medicine
University of Alberta
Dr. Tom Feasby is Associate Dean in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta. He is also Vice President of Academic Affairs at Capital Health in Edmonton. These dual roles helped him to found iCARE, a new research centre that concentrates on improving health care delivery through research.
In 1969, Dr. Feasby received his Bachelor of Science degree, with a specialty in medicine, and his medical degree at the University of Manitoba. He trained in neurology at the University of Western Ontario (1970-74).
Initially, Dr. Feasby's research interests involved human and experimental nerve disease. He was the first to describe the axonal form of Guillain-Barré Syndrome. This observation led to an important redefinition of this disease and a new direction in its research. He also directed randomized clinical trials on the use of intravenous immunoglobulin and other treatments for several nerve diseases. Recently, he developed a program of research in health outcomes and effectiveness. His work on carotid endarterectomy identified the determinants of outcome and pointed the way to improvement.
Currently, Dr. Feasby is conducting a large-scale study addressing appropriateness uses of intravenous immunoglobulin. He is also studying the issue of excessive wait times for medical procedures, such as MRI scans.
Dr. Feasby is active in national and international professional organizations and funding agencies. He was on the editorial board of Neurology and various CIHR panels. He has chaired the Outcomes Research Committee of the American Neurological Association.
Dr. Naomi Fulop
Chair of Health and Health Policy
King's College London
Naomi Fulop is Chair in Health and Health Policy at King's College London and holds an honorary professorship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Naomi trained in social sciences at the universities of Bristol and London, and in public health at Harvard on a Fulbright scholarship. Prior to taking up her Chair at King's, Naomi was Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she was also Director of the National Co-ordinating Centre for Service Delivery and Organisation R&D programme. This national program, funded by the English Department of Health, aims to produce and promote the evidence base for the organization and management of services within the NHS. Naomi is also an honorary member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine and, since 2000, has served as a non-executive director on the board of a large NHS acute hospital in London.
Naomi's research interests are in the area of service delivery and organisational issues in health care, most recently on relationships between, and configurations of, health care organisations. Recent and current topics include the process and impact of vertical and horizontal integration (mergers) of health care providers, learning within and between health care organizations, the concept of organizational 'failure' and 'turnaround' in health care organizations, organizational aspects of IT implementation, and new ways of configuring acute hospital services.
Professor Elaine Gibson
Associate Director
Health Law Institute
Dalhousie University
Elaine Gibson is Associate Director of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University and Associate Professor of Law, Dalhousie Law Faculty. She has an LL.B. with distinction from University of Saskatchewan and an LL.M. from University of Toronto.
Her areas of expertise include health law, privacy law, and negligence. Elaine participates in a number of research projects concerning the privacy and confidentiality of electronic health information, focussing on the uses of information in the areas of health research and public health. She serves on a number of data access/privacy review committees, including the Population Health Research Unit Subcommittee on Confidentiality and the Joint Data Access Committee of the Perinatal Epidemiology Research Unit, the Population Health Research Unit, and the Reproductive Care Program of Nova Scotia.
Paula Goering, BSc, MSc, PhD
Director
Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Dr. Paula Goering is an experienced clinician, consultant and researcher. She has a Masters degree in psychiatric nursing from Yale University and a PhD in Medical Science from the University of Toronto. As Director of the Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Faculty of Nursing, she oversees the work of a group of interdisciplinary investigators who study mental health and addictions service delivery. Under her leadership over the past 12 years this unit has successfully bridged academic and policy worlds. Dr. Goering has pursued the goal of improving mental health services by providing solid empirical data as a foundation for evidence-based approaches to treatment and rehabilitation. She has used epidemiological, health services and program evaluation research methods to do so. At the national level, she has been Chair of the Canadian Academy for Psychiatric Epidemiology and is recognized as a leader in the field of mental health policy. She also helped to create proposals for a Mental Health Institute within the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. As a recent recipient of a CHSRF/CIHR Health Services Chair, she and her research unit are provided with resources to work with government decision-makers to implement a program that will greatly increase capacity for the generation and use of applied mental health and addiction research across Canada.
Jeremy Grimshaw, MD, PhD
Director
Clinical Epidemiology Program
Ottawa Health Research Institute
Dr. Grimshaw is the Director of the Clinical Epidemiology Program of the Ottawa Health Research Institute and Director of the Centre for Best Practice, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa. His research focuses on methods to promote the uptake of research findings by health care professionals and has three foci: (i) Systematic reviews of professional and organizational interventions to improve health care delivery and systems - he is the Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane effective practice and Organisation of Care review group; (ii) Rigorous evaluations of interventions to improve the uptake of research by professionals - he has been involved in over 20 cluster randomised trials and two interrupted time series in diverse settings; and (iii) Methodological research - this includes research into statistical issues in the design, conduct and analysis of cluster randomised trials and the applicability of behavior theory to professional behavior.
Dr. Grimshaw holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake and is a Full Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. He was awarded the CIHR Knowledge Translation Award in 2004. Prior to this he held a Personal Chair in Health Services Research at the University of Aberdeen, UK and was the Programme Director of the Effective Professional Programme within the Health Services Research. Dr. Grimshaw received a MBChB (MD equivalent) from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He was trained as a family physician prior to undertaking a PhD in health services research at the University of Aberdeen.
David Kelly
David Kelly Associates Inc.
David Kelly is a Victoria-based public policy and management consultant, with special experience and skills in healthcare issues. He has more than 20 years experience as a senior policy advisor and executive manager with provincial governments in western Canada, and with the federal government. From January 2000 to March 2001, David Kelly served as the senior advisor to the Deputy Minister of Health Canada. Prior to that, he spent more than three years as the Deputy Minister of Health in British Columbia. From 1982 to 1995, he worked for the Alberta government in several Assistant Deputy Minister positions, including six years as ADM of the Health Care Insurance Program during Alberta's period of reorganization and downsizing in the 1990s. Earlier, he held senior positions with the Saskatchewan Departments of Finance and Health. Mr. Kelly holds a Master of Public Administration degree from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard, as well as a Master of Arts (Political Economy) from the University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Arts (Mathematics and Economics) from the University of Waterloo.
John Lavis, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics
McMaster University
Dr. John N. Lavis is the Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Transfer and Uptake, as well as an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, a Member of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, and Associate Member of the Department of Political Science at McMaster University. He is also Associate Professor (status only) in the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Dr. Lavis holds an M.D. from Queen's University (1989), an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics (1992), and a Ph.D. (1997) from Harvard University.
Dr. Lavis's principal research interests include knowledge transfer and uptake in public policymaking environments as well as the politics of health-care systems. He directs the Program in Policy Decision-Making, a research program affiliated with the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis.
He was the Liberty Health Scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (1998-2003), inaugural Chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Health Policy and Systems Management grants review committee (2000-2003), and Visiting Researcher at the Institut de recherche et de documentation en économie de la santé (IRDES) in Paris, France (2003-4).
Ms. Suzanne Lawson
Suzanne Lawson and Associates
Dr. Peter Norton
Head
Department of Family Medicine
Faculty of Medicine
University of Calgary
Dr. Peter Norton is the head of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary and holds the rank of professor at the university. He is a board member of the Health Quality Council of Alberta and of the CQI Network and a Fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
Dr. Norton received a bachelor of science degree and a bachelor of applied science degree, both with a concentration in mathematics and chemistry (1963), from the University of British Columbia (UBC). He completed a master of arts degree, with a concentration in mathematics (1964), at UBC, and received a doctorate in medicine (1978) from the University of Toronto.
Dr. Norton has an active interest in health services research with particular emphasis on patient safety, knowledge transfer, physician decision-making, quality of care, diabetes and patient and family satisfaction with institutional care. He has been involved with the quality activities at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta.
He presents and teaches on quality improvement, patient safety and medical adverse events across Canada. He is active in the Calgary Health Region quality initiatives and is helping to design a patient safety program there.
Dr. Norton was a principal investigator with Professor Ross Baker in the CIHR-funded Canadian Adverse Event Study, which provided a national estimate of the incidence of adverse events in Canadian hospitals, and was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Dr. Robert Reid
Associate Director for Preventative Care
Investigator
Center for Health Studies
Seattle, WA
Dr. Robert Reid is Associate Director for Preventive Care and Investigator at the Center for Health Studies. He is also an assistant professor of health care and epidemiology at the University of British Columbia, and an affiliate assistant professor of health services at the University of Washington.
Dr. Reid obtained his bachelor of medical science degree (1984) and his medical degree (1986) both at the University of Alberta. He also completed a master's degree in public health, with a concentration, in epidemiology (1993), a medical residency in public health, and a PhD in health policy and management (1998) at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. His research and administrative roles revolve around developing and testing innovations to optimize the delivery of clinical preventive services across Group Health's population.
Dr. Reid is a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and a scholar of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.
Mr. André Rémillard
Chief Executive Officer
Parkland Regional Health Authority
André Rémillard is currently Chief Executive Officer of Parkland Regional Health Authority (PRHA) in Dauphin, Manitoba.
Mr. Rémillard graduated from Brandon Mental Health Centre's Psychiatric Nursing Program in 1974. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Brandon University in 1976, a Certificate in Health Care Administration from the University of Saskatchewan in 1982, and a Master of Science degree in Health Care Administration from Central Michigan University in 1994. He became a Certified Health Executive with the Canadian College of Health Service Executives in 1993.
Parkland Health Region covers an area of 40,000 square kilometers and serves a population of approximately 42,000 people. The Region has 256 acute-care beds in seven facilities, 545 long-term care beds in eleven facilities, and provides a full range of pre-hospital, community and mental health services to the communities it serves. As CEO, Mr. Rémillard is responsible for the general management and conduct of the affairs of the PRHA in accordance with the by-laws, policies and directions of the board, which includes carrying out the health authority's policies and programs.
Prior to joining the PHRA, Mr. Rémillard worked as a psychiatric nurse at Brandon Mental Centre, an addictions counselor with the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, an administrator of De Salaberry District Health Centre and Ambulance Service at St. Pierre Jolys, Chief Executive Officer of William J. Cadzow Hospital at Lac La Biche in Alberta, and Vice President of Programs and Services for Lakeland Regional Health Authority in Smoky Lake, Alberta.
Mr. Robert Shearer
Director of Health Human Resource Strategies Division
Health Canada
Robert Shearer is the Director of Health Human Resource Strategies Division within Health Canada. He has extensive experience in providing strategic policy advice and recommendations to Boards of Management and Senior Management Officials on health and social issues. He played a major role in Nursing Strategy for Canada, Pan Canadian Strategy for International Medical Graduates, creating a Pan-Canadian process to review Entry to Practice Credentials, managed through an Federal/Provincial/Territorial Advisory Committee on Health Human Resources. He also coordinated, administered, and participated in various training courses, public education programs, and special events, such as involvement in the International Year of Youth, Year of the Disabled and Canada's Breast Cancer and HIV/AIDS Strategy. Bob has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Resource Science/Geography.
Dr. Ingrid Sketris
Professor, College of Pharmacy
Dalhousie University
Dr. Sketris is a Professor of the College of Pharmacy, School of Nursing, School of Health Services Administration, Faculty of Computer Science, and the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Dalhousie University. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto (BSc(Phm), 1977), University of Minnesota (PharmD, 1979), University of Tennessee, Centre for Health Sciences (Residency in Clinical Toxicology/Pharmacy Practice, 1980) and Dalhousie University (MPA(HSA) 1989). She is a fellow of the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Dr. Sketris is currently on the Editorial Boards of the Canadian Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Clinical Therapeutics. Dr. Sketris was a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment from 1996 to1998 and of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board from 1999 to 2004. She is currently a member of the CIHR Institute Advisory Board for Health Services and Policy Research. In June 2000, Dr. Sketris received a Chair in health services research focusing on pharmaceutical policy and utilization management from the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) cosponsored by the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation. She and her colleagues at IMPART (Initiative for Medication Management, Policy Analysis, Research and Training) http://www.impart.pharmacy.dal.ca conduct research related to medication management. Dr. Ingrid Sketris received the Anne and Neil McArthur Award April 25, 2006. This award is presented annually to a researcher who works in the area of study covered by the Father Sean O'Sullivan Research Centre affiliated with McMaster University and is an award to honor the achievements of an outstanding researcher.
Dr. Robyn Tamblyn
Professor
Departments of Medicine, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Faculty of Medicine
McGill University
Dr. Robyn Tamblyn is a professor in the Departments of Medicine, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. She also holds a position as medical scientist at the McGill University Health Center Research Institute.
Dr. Tamblyn received her bachelor of science degree in nursing (1973) and her master of science degree, with a concentration in epidemiology (1982), both from McMaster University. She completed her PhD in epidemiology at McGill University (1989).
Dr. Tamblyn directs a CIHR-funded team that investigates the use of e-health technologies to support integrated care for chronic disease. She also leads initiatives to optimize drug management and enhance the early uptake of evidence into primary care practice, the Medical Office of the 21st Century (MOXXI). As Scientific Director of IRIS-Quebec, a novel, Canadian Foundation for Innovation-funded provincial infrastructure for health care and research, she will integrate clinical data from four academic university health centers and their extended primary care networks with the provincial administrative data repository. Dr. Tamblyn is a McGill University William-Dawson scholar.
