Dr. Tara Burra is the Physician Lead in Quality Improvement in the Department of Psychiatry at Sinai Health. She completed her Master’s degree in health geography and then attended medical school and residency training in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Following her specialty training, she completed several certificate courses in QI and patient safety. For six years, she was the service head for adult ambulatory services and co-chaired the QI committee in the Department of Psychiatry at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Unity Health Toronto. She has been co-facilitating the development, delivery and evaluation of the QI curriculum for Psychiatry residents at the University of Toronto since 2015. She is one of the inaugural co-leads of the Quality, Innovation, and Safety hub in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Her clinical work is in general adult psychiatry and perinatal psychiatry.
Dr. Etchells serves as a project mentor supporting Faculty members throughout the University who are involved in Quality Improvement work. He received his MD and subsequent specialty training in General Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto. 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.
Dr. Joanne Goldman is a CQuIPS Scientist, Cross-Appointed Researcher at The Wilson Centre, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. Her primary research interest is using sociologically informed theoretical and methodological perspectives to study quality improvement and patient safety education and practice. In 2015, Joanne obtained her PhD from the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto. She received a CIHR Doctoral Research Award for her study titled “An ethnography of interprofessional interactions in discharge in a Canadian acute care setting”. Upon graduation, Joanne undertook a postdoctoral position with scientists from CQuIPS, The Wilson Centre, and St. Michael’s Hospital. This postdoctoral study, titled “A case study of advanced post-licensure quality improvement and patient safety education” was funded by The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Joanne was a Research Fellow at The Wilson Centre during her doctoral and postdoctoral training.
Lisha Lo joined the Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety in April 2010. She coordinates the EQUIP Program and VAQS Fellowship, as well as provides administrative and research support for Centre-based research projects and educational programs. Ms. Lo received her MPH from the University of Hong Kong and worked at the University’s School of Public Health as a research assistant before returning to Toronto, where she conducted a literature review on trigger tools under the guidance of Dr. Ross Baker at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She brings experience in conducting systematic literature reviews, program coordination, and project management to the team. She has a keen interest in statistical process control and has recently completed work on reviews related to standardised communication, theory use in QIPS curricula, and quality indicators in transitions from paediatric to adult care.
Mercedes joined CQuIPS in March 2022 after providing QI support to the Infection Prevention and Control Department at Sunnybrook for two years. She coordinates CQuIPS’ organizational QI capacity program where she engages and works with client organizations in co-creating workshops and supports coaching for QI projects to address institutional QI strategic priorities.
Mercedes became passionate about quality of care and patient safety early during her training. She completed her internal medicine residency program in 2012 in a tertiary teaching hospital in Argentina, where she also served as Chief Resident. She was subsequently appointed as a staff physician in the Internal Medicine Department. During this time, she completed courses in leadership and decision analysis in Boston. Mercedes and her family arrived to Toronto in October of 2017. She graduated in 2020 from the Master Health Sciences (MHSc) Health administration program at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Amanda Mayo MD MHSc FRCPC is a full-time Clinician in Quality Improvement Physiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She subspecializes in Amputee Rehabilitation. Amanda has a MHSc in Clinical Engineering with a focus on Human Factors Engineering and Usability of Health Technology. Her current QI focus is on improving the continuum of care for individuals with limb loss and preventing dysvascular amputations. Recent projects include reducing wait-times for outpatient rehabilitation, Implementing Prehab for vascular patients, 3D printing of prosthetics, and innovating care pathways for amputees.
With more than 22 years of experience in professional office Executive Assistant positions and a track record of strong performance in high-volume, high-pressure environments, Sherri skillfully manages administrative duties for CQuIPS. As Executive Assistant, she ensures the smooth operation of the department with her robust knowledge of office management, with efficient handling of internal and external stakeholder inquiries and timely access to Associate Directors and Directors as required.
Dr. Olivia Ostrow is a staff physician and the patient safety lead for the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children, and an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto. She received her MD at West Virginia University School of Medicine and completed a combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics training at the University of California San Diego and the University of Rochester. She is board certified in both specialties and holds a certificate in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety from the University of Toronto. Dr. Ostrow is a medical safety leader at the Hospital for Sick Children and the associate director for the hospital’s Choosing Wisely campaign. At the national level, she is the pediatric lead for the Using Antibiotics Wisely Campaign with Choosing Wisely Canada. Provincially, she co-chairs the Emergency Department Return Visit Quality Initiative with Ontario Health Quality. Prior to becoming Associate Director, Dr. Ostrow was the Faculty Quality Improvement Advisor and co- directer of the certificate course for C-QuIPS.
Marie Pinard is the Director of Quality, Safety and Patient Experience at Women’s College Hospital. Previously she was the manager of the Quality Management Department at The Hospital for Sick Children, where she had also worked for over 25 years in a variety of clinical roles including as a front-line nurse in Haematology/Oncology, a specialist in Infection Prevention & Control and Manager of Emergency Preparedness. She received her BScN at the University of Toronto and completed a MSc in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She is passionate about quality improvement (QI), QI methodology, and QI ethics – she spearheaded the development of a robust process for ethical oversight of QI projects at SickKids and has reviewed over 1000 proposals. Her other professional interests include quality monitoring processes, indicator development, patient safety and the science of improvement. She has experience leading hospital accreditation processes through Accreditation Canada, leading strategic projects, investigating adverse events and steering the development of the hospital’s annual Quality Improvement Plan (QIP). Marie also holds an appointment at the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto where she is a course instructor in their Masters in Health Administration program.
Dr. Leahora Rotteau oversees the general operations and the strategic priorities and activities of the Centre. She also contributes to the Centre-based research programs. She brings expertise in strategic management and qualitative healthcare care research to the team. Dr. Rotteau received her PhD from the University of Toronto, Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. Her primary research interests include the use of social theory to better understand how and why certain interventions are taken up and spread in practice and the exploration of the social and structural factors that enable the integration of care across acute, primary and community sectors.
Dr. Shojania is Vice Chair (Quality & Innovation) in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, where he also sees patients as a general internist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
Dr Shojania’s research focuses on identifying evidence-based patient safety interventions and effective strategies for translating evidence into practice. Dr Shojania has more than 150 publications indexed in Medline, including in leading journals such as JAMA, the New England Journal, and the Lancet. Google Scholar lists over 19,000 citations to his work with an h-index of 64. And, from 2011-2020, Dr. Shojania was Editor-in-Chief (and then Co-Editor-in-Chief) of BMJ Quality and Safety, which now has the 2nd highest impact factor not just journals covering health care quality and safety, but also all of health services research, clinical informatics, medical education, and health policy.
Patricia Trbovich is Associate Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and cross appointed at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. She holds the Badeau Family Research Chair in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement at North York General Hospital.
Patricia leads HumanEra, a team of human factors researchers dedicated to studying and improving safety and performance in healthcare. Her current research includes a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded project focused on improving opioid guidance for Canadian hospitals, and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) funded program focused on operator decision making during uncertainty in surgery, using the Operating Room Black Box.
She has promoted knowledge of human factors engineering worldwide through her collaborations with researchers in Brazil and Spain to develop human factors expertise in their healthcare systems. She is Associate Editor for the BMJ Quality and Safety journal.
Mohita Vedhi joined CQuIPS in 2017 and currently administers the Certificate Course and quality improvement workshops. She has vast experience managing and coordinating programs in healthcare and enjoys utilizing her strong program management skills to facilitate the Centre’s programs.
Dr. Wong is a staff general internist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and served as CQuIPS Associate Director, Sunnybrook Site, from 2013 to 2019. Dr. Wong received his MD and subsequent specialty training in General Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto. After completing his residency training in 2007, he undertook a research fellowship in patient safety funded by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. In his role as CQuIPS Associate Director, he co-led both the Certificate Course and EQUIP and worked with academic departments at the University of Toronto to establish criteria to recognize QI and PS activities for the purposes of academic promotion. Outside of Toronto, he has worked with several national and international organizations, including the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Choosing Wisely Canada, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, and the Association of American Medical Colleges, to establish training programs and standards to build QI and patient safety capacity across the learning continuum.