CQuIPS Symposium 2025: Opening Remarks and Plenary

Razia Rashed is a long-time resident of Taylor-Massey in East Toronto and is well known for her volunteer work, advocacy, and community engagement. As a member of the ETHP Community Advisory Council and a Community Health Ambassador with TNO – The Neighbourhood Organization, Razia actively advocates for equitable access to healthcare, social services, and community resources. She also serves as a community representative on the Steering Committee of ETHP’s East Effort Project, addressing critical challenges and amplifying community voices. Razia is Co-Chair of both the Taylor-Massey Residents Wellness Council (TMRWC) and the Taylor-Massey Steering Committee, two groups that help guide the work of Health Access Taylor-Massey, a healthcare, community, and social services centre launched by ETHP in the neighbourhood. Her leadership extends to co-chairing the Taylor-Massey and Oakridge Community Response Team (TMOCRT), a grassroots initiative she helped establish during the COVID-19 pandemic to share local health and social service information and strengthen community resilience. Since early last year, Razia has taken on a pivotal role as Community Co-Lead with East Toronto Health Partners (ETHP) under their new triad leadership model, continuing her mission to drive meaningful, inclusive change in East Toronto.

Melissa Sheldrick is a trained educator and has been working with families for more than 20 years. She began advocating for improved safety after the loss of her 8-year-old son, Andrew, from a community pharmacy medication error in 2016. Since that time, Melissa has been working with organizations to advance continuous quality improvement programs in community pharmacy, including error reporting. She is an active member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada and continues to advocate for patient safety, and more specifically medication safety, across the country and internationally. Melissa has delivered presentations on patient safety to local, provincial, national and international audiences.

Adrienne Zarem is an embedded Patient Partner with Healthcare Excellence Canada’s Patient Safety, Equity and Engagement team, and a passionate advocate for patient engagement and partnership in healthcare. After her youngest daughter was diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder in 2013, Adrienne embarked on a journey to partner with local and national organizations to help advance person-centred care through effective and meaningful patient and family engagement. She is a past co-chair of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital’s Family Advisory Committee, a current member of the Holland Bloorview’s Quality Committee of the Board of Directors, a Parent Advisor for the ECHO Ontario Autism Program, and one of Canada’s first Patient Surveyors with Accreditation Canada.

Jane O’Hara is Director of Research at THIS Institute, and a patient safety researcher with extensive experience of developing and evaluating interventions to improve the safety of care. Some of her areas of interest include engaging patients and families in improving care quality and safety, understanding and improving the safety of work, and co-production. Her other research interests have focused on exploring ways of improving incident investigation and learning, safety theory and resilient healthcare approaches, and quality and safety intervention development and testing.