Members

Sonal Gandhi is a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer and acute oncology at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, as a Clinician in Quality and Innovation. Dr. Gandhi has an MSc in Health Technology Assessment. Her academic interests include targeted cancer therapy toxicity management, decreasing emergency care use, and neoadjuvant breast cancer response monitoring technologies and treatment standardization. She has led nationally recognized programs in oral anti-cancer drug management, and helped to lead and write provincial and national guidelines in breast cancer. She currently leads a novel model for oncology urgent care at her centre, and is leading work in using AI to model high risk emergency room utilization by cancer patients. She is involved in national health technology processes for approving novel cancer medications. She has dozens of academic publications and presented abstracts.

Edward Etchelles serves as a project mentor supporting Faculty members throughout the University who are involved in Quality Improvement work. He joined the faculty of the Department of Medicine after completing an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology. Dr. Etchell’s initial academic interest lay in clinical bioethics, with a focus on informed consent and decision making capacity. But, he realized – after five years of inpatient attending – that safe and reliable delivery of healthcare were recurrent problems. Edward conducted some of the original research that established medication reconciliation globally as a best practice in patient safety and he was a co-investigator on the Canadian Adverse Events Study. Edward co-founded the Patient Safety Service, the first hospital-based academic safety service in Canada, with support from the SHSC senior leadership team. Dr. Etchells helped to establish the Department of Medicine’s Quality Partners program in 2006 and the U of T Certificate Program in Quality and Patient Safety in 2008. He is currently Medical Director of Information Services at SHSC. His research interests include medication reconciliation, computerized medication order entry, and real time alerting and decision support for critical laboratory values.

Christine Soong is an Associate Professor with appointments in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the Department of Family and Community, the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Department of Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto.  She is the inaugural Division Head of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Sinai Health as well as at the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Dr. Soong completed her medical degree at Western University, family medicine residency at the University of Toronto, and a Master’s degree in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation.  She is the Medical Director of Quality and Safety at Sinai Health and the Hospital Designation Program Lead at Choosing Wisely Canada. Dr. Soong is an Associate Editor at BMJ Quality and Safety, a faculty in the Master’s Concentration in Quality and Patient Safety at IHPME and Core Member of CQuIPS.  Her research and academic interests include quality improvement, high-value care, novel models of inpatient care, and transitions of care.

Eric Monteiro is an assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the University of Toronto, with his practice based primarily out of Sinai Health System and the University Healthy Network.  Dr. Monteiro received his MD and residency training from the University of Toronto. He went on to complete 2 years of advanced fellowship training in minimally invasive skull base surgery, head and neck surgical oncology and rhinology.  He also completed an MSc in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the Institute of Healthy Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. His primary focus in quality improvement and patient safety is the development and evaluation of quality indicators for various conditions in the field of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck surgery. Recent projects include developing quality indicators for the surgical management of well-differentiated thyroid cancer as well as for the management of acute and chronic rhinosinusitis. He is involved in the Choosing Wisely campaign for the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery and is currently involved in creating the lists for the subspecialties of Rhinology and Head & Neck Surgery. He is currently leading the development of a patient friendly website aimed at improving the perioperative experience of patients undergoing various Otolaryngological procedures. He was a member of the working group in Cancer Care Ontario which developed the Quality Based Procedure (QBP) protocol for thyroid surgery.

Trey Coffey is a practicing hospitalist and quality and safety leader based at SickKids in Toronto. After training at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital, Trey joined the SickKids Division of Paediatric Medicine in 2005. She has led and contributed to research in the epidemiology of hospital adverse events, disclosure, handoff, high reliability, and health equity. A graduate of the inaugural class of the University of Toronto Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQUIPS) in 2009, Trey served as Associate Director of CQUIPS from 2012-2017.  From 2012-2022 Trey served as Medical Safety Officer at SickKids where she initiated the implementation of the transformational Caring Safely program.  From 2017-2022, Trey was the Associate Clinical Director of Children’s Hospitals Solutions for Patient Safety, serving as one of a four-member executive team leading a network of 140 children’s hospitals across the US and Canada collaborating to eliminate preventable patient and employee harm. Trey’s leadership in quality and safety have garnered several individual and group awards. In 2023 Trey assumed the role of Associate Chief Medical Officer for Medical Affairs and Quality at SickKids.

Nely Amaral is currently the Director of Nursing Quality and Practice for Sinai Health System and the Magnet Program Director for Mount Sinai Hospital. Mount Sinai Hospital is currently the only hospital in all of Canada to achieve Magnet designation and distinction. Nely is the Magnet Program Director for this site. Magnet is a voluntary recognition process, similar to accreditation, for excellence in patient care. It is conducted by the American Nurses Credentialing Centre (ANCC) and is one of the highest achievements a healthcare organization can attain. Nely has extensive experience in leading Quality, project management, and patient safety and risk review in the organization, specifically, the Women’s and Infants Health Programs. Nely’s clinical background and expertise in nursing is in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where she has worked for over 24 years. Nely has a special interest in neonatal outcomes, in particular, the reduction of neonatal infections. Nely has just handed over her 5-year term as the EPIQ (Evidence-based Practice for Improving Quality) Co-Chair for the Nosocomial Infection Outcome group for Canada. Nely was a graduate to the Veterans Affairs Quality Scholar (VAQS)Fellowship program in 2016, successfully being the first nurse in Canada to graduate from the course and she is currently Co-Director and Faculty for the program through the Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQuIPS).

Anne Matlow is a Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine where she is currently Faculty Lead, PG Leadership.  Her passion for system wide improvement in patient safety and in the quality of patient care, has been realized throughout her career, and includes leadership positions locally (hospital and university), nationally (on the Board of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute; surveyor with Accreditation Canada; Patient Safety Systems Educator with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada) and internationally (founding member of the Pediatric International Patient Safety and Quality Collaborative (PIPSQC). She was co-principle investigator, along with Dr Ross Baker on the Canadian Pediatric Adverse Events Study which was one of the first national studies to define the epidemiology of harmful patient safety incidents hospitalized children.

Over the past decade Dr. Matlow has focused her attention on leadership education as a key lever for systems transformation. At the University of Toronto she established the Leading by Example Education Series for postgraduate trainees and is co-Director of the Postgraduate Medical Education Leadership Certificate Program. She led the scientific development committee at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada that developed

SimuLEADerShip, a leadership simulation game co-developed with the Canadian Society for Physician Leaders and LEADS Global. On an international level she was Co- Chair of the Planning Committee of The International Summit on Leadership Education for Physicians (TISLEP) for seven years, and is a founding member and past co-Chair of sanokondu, the international community of practice dedicated to fostering leadership education for healthcare professionals.  Her ongoing passion lies in equipping physicians of today and tomorrow with the knowledge and skills needed to create and nurture a culture of quality and safety for providers and patients alike.

G. Ross Baker is an Emeritus Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. His research has included studies of patient safety, quality improvement, patient engagement and integrated care systems. With Dr. Peter Norton, Ross led the Canadian Adverse Events Study which initiated a broad range of patient safety programs and activities across the country. Ross’s coauthored book on High Performing Healthcare Systems published in 2008 has been widely cited. His current projects include an assessment of the impact of hospital characteristics, including safety culture, on the incidence of adverse events in hospitals and studies of patient engagement in Canadian healthcare organizations. Ross has been a professor at the University of Toronto for more than 30 years and led the development of the Master’s in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at IHPME. Ross is currently co-leading the Ontario Health System Impact Fellowship Program. He is the Chair of the Quality and Patient Safety Committee for the University Health Network Board of Directors and served on the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council for 12 years. Dr. Baker is also a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. In October 2017 he received the Barer Flood Prize from the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research of the Canadian Institutes of Health Services Research in recognition of his “outstanding contributions to health services and policy research, policy and/or care delivery in Canada.”