Leadership Team

Bourne Auguste (he/him)

enveos — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 06:32:56 +0000

Bourne Auguste, MD, is the Program Director for the CQuIPS Certificate Course. He is an …

Christie Lockhart (She/her)

camille bdenbigh — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 14:36:06 +0000

Christie Lockhart is currently the Medical Director of Quality, Innovation and Research as well as the Chief of the Department of Midwifery and Co-Program Medical Director of Maternal Newborn & Child Health Service at Michael Garron Hospital (MGH) in Toronto, ON. She is the interim Associate Director, Michael Garron Hospital at CQuIPS. Christie has been a practicing midwife in the Thorncliffe Park area of Toronto since 2007 and has recently completed her MSc in Midwifery at McMaster University where she focused on the intersection of patient safety and social determinants of health. Christie’s current research projects include examining patient safety incidents at Michael Garron Hospital with an equity framework and the evaluation of the implementation of a Midwife-led Early Pregnancy Clinic. Christie is a clinical preceptor and Adjunct Faculty at Toronto Metropolitan University. Since 2021 Christie has been serving on the MOHLTC Primary Care Advisory Table. Christie has previously been a member of the BORN Midwifery Advisory Committee and the AOM Board of Directors and the TASHN Anti-Racism steering Committee.

Chandra Farrer (she/her)

camille bdenbigh — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 15:25:33 +0000

Chandra is the Quality Manager and is the Associate Director at the Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQuIPS) at Women’s College Hospital (WCH). She completed a Masters in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety and holds a clinical lecturer status in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto. Her quality improvement projects include: evaluation of rheumatology models of care, referral management, electronic patient record utilization and optimization, and improving communication for patient safety. Chandra has worked with the Ontario Rheumatology Association, advocating for models of care to leverage health human resources to provide equitable access to care in Northern Ontario.

Chandra has worked clinically as a physiotherapist and completed her Advanced Clinician Practitioner in Arthritis Care certification to work in the capacity of an Advanced Practice Physiotherapist in rheumatology.

Upasana Panda (she/her)

enveos — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 04:24:47 +0000

Upasana Panda, MSc, BSc, joined CQuIPS in 2023 as a Research Assistant. She has vast experience managing and coordinating research studies and applying scientific research methodologies. She is trained in conducting various qualitative methods and designing qualitative studies. She has an educational background in Psychology and Mental health. She has completed her Master’s in Rehabilitation Sciences from McMaster University. She brings a unique perspective to the team from her diverse experiences in the fields of education, healthcare improvement, and psychology.

Sonal Gandhi (she/her)

enveos — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 04:18:13 +0000

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.

Camille Borromeo Denbigh (she/her)

enveos — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 03:36:09 +0000

Camille Borromeo Denbigh, BA Hons., CE, comes to CQuIPS with a background in public relations, communications and medical education. She completed her undergraduate studies in communications followed by post-graduate studies in public relations. She manages a number of initiatives at the Centre which help foster and develop the QI community, both within and external to CQuIPS. In her work, she finds innovative ways to engage and mobilize new ways of thinking. Along with leading general communications strategies for the Centre, Camille also manages the TAHSN QIPS Community of Practice, a community that spans across 15 healthcare institutions and educational organizations. Camille is inspired to use her expertise to help integrate and connect the healthcare community in meaningful ways through education, research and scholarship.

Beth Gamulka (she/her)

enveos — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 08:41:11 +0000

Beth Gamulka is a hospital-based paediatrician who has spent her career splitting her clinical responsibilities between tertiary and community hospitals in the GTA. Currently, she is a staff physician at SickKids in the Divisions of Paediatric Medicine and Emergency Medicine as well as at North York General Hospital in the Department of Paediatrics. After completing the C-QuIPS Excellence in Quality Improvement Certificate Program (EQUIP) in 2019, Beth became an active participant in the Sepsis Program at SickKids and the clinical coordination, management and investigation of children with Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). She also joined the faculty of the Co-Learning Curriculum in QI Program for fellows and is one of the faculty members providing QI education for core paediatric trainees. Given her perspective working in both the academic inpatient and emergency settings as well as in community hospitals, Beth has a particular interest in improving transitions of care between tertiary and community settings. Her main QI focus for the C-QUIPS Improvement Fellowship will be on QI implementation of a new EMR-based sepsis recognition tool on the inpatient paediatric medicine units at SickKids.

Nely Amaral (she/her)

enveos — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 06:39:40 +0000

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).

Brian Wong (he/him)

enveos — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 07:30:56 +0000

Brian Wong, MD, FRCPC, is the Director of CQuIPS, a staff general internist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. 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. He has co-led several major QI training programs at the University of Toronto, including the Faculty-Resident Co-Learning Curriculum, the Certificate Course in QIPS 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, Dr. Wong 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, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, to establish training programs and standards to build QI and patient safety capacity across the learning continuum.

Mohita Vedhi (she/her)

enveos — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 07:30:09 +0000

Mohita Vedhi, BA Hons., 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.