Richard C. Alvarez

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Health Infoway

Mr. Alvarez has been a catalyst for accelerating the development of electronic health records in Canada. He has established strong, collaborative relationships with the federal, provincial and territorial governments and other stakeholders as the foundation for solid progress. On the international front, he has helped to position Canada as a world leader in health care renewal.

Prior to his role at Infoway, Mr. Alvarez played a key role in harnessing the power of information to improve health care. As former President and Chief Executive Officer and ex-officio Board Member of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), he helped the CIHI evolve into a well-known and respected organization with strong ties to the research community. He was recognized as the 2007 National Builder Inductee to the Canadian Information Productivity Awards Hall of fame for the leadership he has exercised (with the Government of Alberta, the Canadian Institute for Health Information and at Infoway) in promoting the application of innovative technology to improve health care delivery for Canadians.

Mr. Alvarez is a frequent speaker and facilitator at national and international healthcare conferences and is a past recipient of the Who’s Who in Healthcare Award. He is an honorary fellow of the e-Health Research Centre’s (EHrC) Advisory Committee of Australia, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Identity, Privacy and Security Initiative at the University of Toronto.

Matthew Anderson

President and CEO, William Osler Health System

Mr. Anderson became President and CEO of William Osler Health System in April 2010. It is one of the largest community hospital systems in Canada, serving the growing and diverse communities of Brampton, Etobicoke and surrounding areas in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Amalgamated in 1998, Osler’s hospitals include Etobicoke General, Brampton Civic and the soon-to-be redeveloped Peel Memorial, which together provide a comprehensive range of acute care, ambulatory and ancillary health services. Osler’s emergency departments are among the busiest in the province and its labour and delivery programme is one of the largest in the GTA.

Mr. Anderson previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network, a crown corporation responsible for the local planning, measuring and funding of 177 health provider organizations (long-term care homes, community care access centres, community health centres, community support services, hospitals, and mental health and addiction agencies) that serve more than 1.15 million Ontarians. Mr. Anderson also held the position of Senior Vice President of Performance and Technology at the University Health Network, where he led the information, quality management and technology portfolios, and served as the Chief Information Officer for a number of healthcare agencies across the continuum of care.

Johanne Desrochers

Associate Director, Telehealth, McGill University Health Centre

The leadership of the MUHC Telehealth programme is situated at The Montreal Children’s Hospital, where Ms. Desrochers is administrator for the Northern and Native Health Programme and the Pediatric Outreach Network. She co-chairs the development of telehealth for the McGill University Integrated Healthcare Network or RUIS, and is active in many sectors of the health and social services network. She is a member of the executive committee of the Quebec Telehealth Network (rQT) and sits on the clinical advisory committee for the Quebec electronic health record (Dossier santé Québec or DSQ), representing the Québec Order of Nurses.

Ms. Desrochers holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Calgary, a certificate in community health from the University of Québec in Trois-Rivières and a Master of Science in Health Administration from the University of Montreal.

Lise Fournel

Senior Vice President, e-Commerce, and Chief Information officer, Air Canada

An Air Canada employee for more than 25 years, Ms. Fournel joined the airline in 1979 in the Operational research Department. She became Manager, Customer relations, Computer and Systems Services Branch in 1983 and, over the next 10 years, held several positions as Director and Senior Director in areas such as Strategic and Tactical Planning, and Pricing and Yield Management. Ms. Fournel was appointed Vice President, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, then Senior Vice-President

Commercial in June 1999. In January 2000, she was appointed Executive Vice-President, Commercial and, in September 2001, was appointed President of Destina, an Air Canada subsidiary that is responsible for all e-commerce initiatives and development of the aircanada.com and destina.ca websites.

A member of various boards of directors, Ms. Fournel also acts as a mentor for the Jeune Chambre de Commerce de Montréal, and is actively involved in helping young students stay in school.

Sholom Glouberman

Philosopher-in-residence, Kunin-Lunenfeld Applied Research Unit, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care

Until 1987, Dr. Glouberman worked at a McGill University teaching hospital where he experienced first-hand the struggles among various forces in health care. In 1987, he went to the King’s fund in London, England, where he designed and led innovative programmes in leadership development. In Canada, he has designed and led leadership development programmes in public- and private-sector organizations. In the U.K., he has acted as a consultant to major teaching hospitals. His recent publications are in the areas of complex systems, health in cities, and healthcare reform.

Dr. Glouberman’s projects include the development of the International Masters Programme for Health Leadership at McGill University; the establishment of the Clinamen Collaboration, a mixed group of writers on health and complexity; and reconnecting to Care, a project at Baycrest to bring the care of patients back to basics.

In 2007, Dr. Glouberman founded the Patients’ Association of Canada (PAC), whose members are people who have had, or have accompanied someone through, an intense experience with the health system. Much of his writing and many of his presentations are available on his website, www.healthandeverything.org.

Charles Gutteridge

National Clinical Director for Informatics, U.K. Department of Health

Dr. Gutteridge was Medical Director at Barts and the London Trust from 2002 until 2010.

He also works as a consultant haematologist at Barts Hospital and at Newham General Hospital. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists. As a member of the London Review Acute Group, he was involved in providing clinical advice to Lord Darzi’s review of health provision in London.

Dr. Gutteridge chaired the Association of U.K. University Hospitals Medical Directors and has been strongly involved in patient safety, confidentiality and informatics issues at Barts. He was the Caldicott Guardian for Barts, led the Safer Patients Initiative 2006-8 and chaired the Clinical Informatics Design Authority, which gave clinical advice about improving the use of the Trust’s new patient administration system.

Dr. Gutteridge was appointed National Clinical Director for Informatics at the Department of Health in January 2010. He is responsible for delivering informatics to improve patient care and facilitating dialogue between clinicians, patients and informatics providers.

Jean Huot

Executive Director, SYSCOR; CIO, CHUM and MUHC

Mr. Huot has 25 years of experience in consulting and management in complex environments. He has a broad knowledge of the health, social services, public services, transportation and justice fields. He also worked in numerous projects for private firms in the finance, insurance, distribution and manufacturing domains. In 1998, he started to work as a CIO for the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), the most important organization in the health informatics field in the province of Québec. At the same time, he was nominated Executive Director of SYSCOR, MUHC’s IS-IT wholly owned subsidiary.

In 2000, in conjunction with the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal (Montreal regional Health Board), he created the Technocentre, a service and data centre used by all health and social organizations of the region and is still in charge of its operation. In 2002, he was asked to become CIO at the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, in order to initiate collaboration in the IS-IT field between the two largest healthcare institutions in the province.

Yeona Jang

Professor of Practice, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University

Dr. Jang has over 15 years of consulting and management experience in IT as a senior executive in telecommunications, financial services, utility, and IT services industries. Before coming to McGill University in June 2008, she worked as Vice President and Chief Information Officer/Chief Knowledge Officer at Samsung SDS, where she led IT-enabled business initiatives to help the company accelerate the process of transforming themselves into a Global Top-Ten player in the IT service industry. Prior to joining Samsung SDS, she held executive positions at Citibank and the energy company PSEG, where she was responsible for product development and technology management.

Dr. Jang is a member of the Committee on Future Information Architectures, Processes, and Strategies for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which handles one third of the patient population in the U.S. The Centers’ core mission is expanding from a focus on prompt claims payment to broader involvement in improving health care quality and efficiency in support of the U.S. healthcare reform.

Robert M. Kolodner

President, Collaborative Transformations, LLC

In September 2009, Dr. Kolodner transitioned from the federal to the private sector to co-found and become President of Collaborative Transformations, LLC, where he consults with organizations regarding their health IT strategies and plans. Additionally, in October 2009, Dr. Kolodner was hired as Chief Health Informatics Officer for the non-profit organization Open Health Tools, Inc.

From 2006 to April 2009, Dr. Kolodner served as the President’s designated lead for the United States eHealth initiative as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (IT) in the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). His responsibilities included developing, maintaining, and directing the implementation of a health IT strategic plan. Prior to joining the DHHS, Dr. Kolodner was the key clinical champion in the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) providing vision, direction and effective leadership for the development and pervasive use of VA’s award-winning suite of health IT solutions, including My Healthevet, a Personal Health record for veterans, and VistA — the world’s first successful large-scale Electronic Health Record implementation.

His VA activities also included research and teaching, with clinical faculty appointments at Emory University, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Maryland. Dr. Kolodner has medical specialty board certification in psychiatry and is a fellow in the American College of Medical Informatics.

Otto Larsen

CEO, Digital Health, Denmark

Mr. Larsen took office in the National Board of Health in 2007 as Deputy Director General, and is now in charge of the development of the national organization of Digital Health. Mr. Larsen, a graduate in political science, has worked for the Association of County Councils since 1971 and served as Director General between 1986 and 2006. He has been closely involved in the development of Digital Health on a strategic level and has an in-depth knowledge of the Danish healthcare system, as well as political decision-making procedures at national, regional and local levels.

Sean McGarry

Treasurer, Queen’s Debating Union

Mr. McGarry joined the Debating Union in 2008 and is now, as Treasurer, responsible for the club’s budget and finances. He is entering his fourth year of a Bachelor of Arts in History and is the senior staff writer for Golden Words, a student-run newspaper at Queen’s University. He grew up in Kingston and plans to enter law school after completing his History degree.

Philippe Panzini

Chief Technology Officer, Medical.MD

Medical.MD is working to produce forward-thinking solutions to deliver Internet-based, user-friendly platforms for personal health management. Mr. Panzini is the creator of Medical.MD’s Unani™ Personal Health record, the first product to run on the TELUS Health Space platform. Prior to Medical.MD, Mr. Panzini was Senior Technology Advisor to the Pro Applications Group at Apple Cupertino, California. He was Chief Technology Officer at Discreet Logic until the company was acquired by San Francisco-based Autodesk. He received an Academy Award in 1998 for the design and implementation of Discreet Logic’s flame and Inferno, two key technologies widely used within the film industry. He was also part of the initial team at Softimage, a pioneering Computer Graphics company based in Montreal.

Guy Paré

Canada Research Chair in Information Technology in Health Care

Dr. Paré is a Professor of Information Technology Management and Co-Director of the Information Technology research Group at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) Montreal. He received his Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration (PhD) from Florida International University and his MSc in Information Systems from the HEC Montréal. Dr. Paré is current holder of the Canada research Chair in Information Technology in Health Care. He is studying how IT solutions are being adopted and implemented and what kind of influence they are having on our health care.

Dr. Paré’s work has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, the American Journal of Managed Care, Methods of Information in Medicine, the European Journal of Information Systems, the Journal of Information Technology, and MIS Quarterly. He serves as a referee for many journals in the information systems and medical informatics fields. He has also carried out a number of consulting activities in the area of health IT, all of which include a research component.

Lois Scott

Vice President, CareEnhance Solutions, McKesson Canada

Ms. Scott has played a leading role both nationally and internationally in the development of telehealth services, telenursing standards and clinical practice competencies. She has served as a Board/Committee Member or Advisor to many organizations, including the Canadian Society of Telehealth, National Initiative for Telehealth Guidelines, Canadian Council of Health Services Accreditation and Canadian Patient Safety Institute. Ms. Scott is a founding member of the International Council of Nursing’s (ICN) Telenursing Special Interest Group and the International Society of Telemedicine and eHealth’s Telenursing Working Group.

Ms. Scott has presented at many national and international conferences. She has been awarded the Nurses Association of New Brunswick’s Award of Merit for Nursing Leadership and the Canadian Nurses Association’s Centennial Award in recognition of her national and international contribution to the nursing profession.

Saro Setrakian

Member, McGill Debating Union

Mr. Setrakian has been a member of the McGill Debating Union for five years. He is a Central Canadian Debating Champion, a two-time North American finalist, a National finalist, and a University of Toronto Hart House Invitational Champion. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics and English Literature and is entering his third year of a Law degree.

Sean Stefanik

President, McGill Debating Union

Mr. Stefanik is a North American and Nationals finalist, BP Championships public speaking winner, and top speaker at the National Championships. He is currently in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History, and looks forward to pursuing a Master’s degree in Health Policy in the future.

Luc Valiquette

Director, Department of Surgery, Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal

Dr. Valiquette is a urologic surgeon at the Centre hospitalier de l’université de Montréal (CHUM). His areas of expertise include benign prostatic hyperplasia, incontinence and voiding dysfunction, erectile dysfunction and stone surgery, as well as prostate cancer screening.

Dr. Valiquette is Professor and Director of the Department of Surgery at the Université de Montréal. He teaches surgery and urology at both pre- and postgraduate levels. He was previously Director of the Urology Training Programme and was a member of the Accreditation Committee of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He has been involved in numerous clinical research studies and was previously Associate Director of Clinical research at the CHUM. He has over 200 scientific papers, summaries and book chapters to his credit and is a member of many scientific societies.

Dr. Valiquette is Chief Clinical Officer of the Technological Transition, guiding the implementation of the clinical information system at the CHUM. Dr. Valiquette has been President of the Québec Urological Association, President of the Canadian Urological Association and, in 2006, was appointed Secretary General of the International Urological Association. He is a member of many advisory boards for pharmaceutical companies and non-profit organizations, and a member of the Physician Advisory Board at Canada Health Infoway.

WuDi Wu

President, Queen’s Debating Union

Mr. Wu has been involved in the debating union since 2007. He is a fourth year Bachelor of Commerce student, and also runs a club affiliated with literacy charity called room to read. He hails from Saskatchewan and will pursue law school after his undergraduate degree.