Creating New Directions: collaborations between patient-oriented researchers and health system decision-makers

Mary Ackenhusen: Mary holds the appointment of Senior Executive in Residence and lead for the Partnerships and Innovation Division at the British Columbia Ministry of Health.   This exciting new role  is focused on health innovation and aligns with Mary’s long-standing commitment to system transformation. Mary has had an impact on the health sector in British Columbia for close to 20 years. Most recently, she was the President and CEO of Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) from 2014-2020.  Mary joined VCH in 2007 as a Chief Operating Officer and prior to that she served on the Fraser Health Authority’s leadership team for seven years. Throughout her career with the Health Authorities, Mary has pursued her passion for transforming the way care is delivered in order to ensure BC has a high quality healthcare system that is sustainable in the face of growing demand and constrained resources. This focus includes her leadership of the OneVCH employee engagement initiative that is committed to empowering and engaging staff and physicians across VCH. In 2019, Glassdoor, one of the world’s largest employee recruitment sites, named Mary as one of Canada’s top 25 CEOs based on employee reviews. As CEO of VCH, she encouraged a focus on innovation and discoveries that improve patient health, transform health systems, and directly impact health and economic outcomes. Her longstanding interest in virtual care enabled health providers to continue delivering care to patients and clients across VCH during the recent weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mary is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Master of Business Administration program and the West Virginia University’s Industrial Engineering program.

Davina Banner is an Associate Professor at the School of Nursing at the University of Northern British Columbia and leads an interdisciplinary program of research exploring cardiovascular and rural health. Davina has a special interest in patient-oriented research and integrated knowledge translation. Outside of work, Davina is a mom of three, devoted foodie, and exercise enthusiast.

Stirling Bryan: President, BC Academic Health Science Network; Professor, School of Population & Public Health, University of British Columbia; Senior Scientist, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation Vancouver Coastal Health Professor (part-time); Health Economics Research Unit, University of Aberdeen. Dr. Stirling Bryan is a university-based health economist with extensive experience of  engagement with the policy and decision-making world. He began his career in the UK with appointments at St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School and then Brunel University, before moving to the University of Birmingham. His research track-record reveals a long-standing goal of informing policy and practice, demonstrated, in part, through extensive engagement with the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE). For many years he led the University of Birmingham team that conducted economic analyses for NICE, and subsequently served for three years as a member of the NICE technology appraisals committee. In 2005 he was awarded a Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellowship and spent one year at Stanford University, researching technology coverage decision making in a US health care organizations. He immigrated to Canada in 2008, taking on the roles of professor in UBC’s School of Population & Public Health, and Director of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation. Over recent years, Dr. Bryan has become a strong advocate for, and practitioner of, patient-oriented research, and now partners with patients in all of his research activities. In 2016, he was appointed Scientific Director for the BC SUPPORT Unit, an operational unit of the BC Academic Health Science Network (BC AHSN), focused on promoting patient-oriented research. In 2020, Dr. Bryan became the president of BC AHSN which includes oversight of its operational units: the BC SUPPORT Unit, Clinical Trials BC and Research Ethics BC.

Lindsay Hedden: Assistant Scientific Direction, BC Academic Health Science Network; Assistant Professor of Learning Health Systems in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Her work in primary care focuses specifically on how we can improve access for patients; how we can measure current and predict future supply and demand; and how we can address physician workforce issues, all in the context of a developing learning health system. As a post-doctoral Health System Impact Fellow, she worked with the provincial Ministry of Health on an improved strategy for physician workforce planning, supporting physician recruitment and retention efforts, and the development and evaluation of new models of primary care delivery. Dr. Hedden completed a previous post-doctoral fellowship with the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation. She has a PhD in Population and Public Health, and Master of Science in Epidemiology from the University of British Columbia, and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Health Studies from the University of Waterloo. She currently serves as the Treasurer on the Board of Directors for the Justice Emmett Hall Memorial Foundation. She joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2020.

Dr. Richard Stanwick is currently the Chief Medical Health Officer for Island Health (Vancouver Island Health Authority). He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He completed his medical school training at the University of Manitoba and received his Fellowship in Pediatrics after a residency at Winnipeg Children’s Hospital where he was the Chief Resident in his final year. He next was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at McGill University, where he also received his Master’s Degree in Epidemiology and Health. In addition, he was a teaching Fellow in Pediatrics at the Montreal Children's Hospital. On his return to Manitoba, Dr. Stanwick also acquired his Fellowship in Community Medicine (Public Health) and rose to the rank of Full Professor in two departments at the University of Manitoba. He spent two years with the Province of Manitoba, including one as the Acting Provincial Epidemiologist. He became the Medical Officer of Health for the City of Winnipeg from 1991 to 1995. He joined the Capital Regional District in September 1995, became the Medical Officer of Health for the newly formed Capital Health region in 1997 and Chief Medical Health Officer of the Vancouver Island Health Authority in 2001.

Colleen Varcoe, RN, PhD is a professor in the University of British Columbia School of Nursing. Her work aims to decrease inequity and violence including interpersonal and structural forms of violence such as racism and poverty. Her completed research includes studies of risks and health effects of violence and how to promote health for women who experience violence, especially Indigenous women. She has studied how to promote equity-oriented healthcare (cultural safety, harm reduction, and trauma- and violence-informed care) at the organizational level in primary care and worked with various Indigenous communities, organizations and issues, including in health care and criminal justice contexts.

Dr. Sonia Singh is a Fraser Health hospitalist physician and osteoporosis consultant based at Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock. She is the past regional medical director for research at Fraser Health and was the recipient of the FH Above and Beyond Award for Evidence into Practice in 2015.  She is the team lead for the Fraser Health Implementation Science Research Team and holds academic appointments at both UBC and SFU

Larry Funnell is a long-time volunteer with Osteoporosis Canada (OC) Larry is an advocate for improvements in the care provided to the more than two million Canadian men and women who suffer from the disease. Drawing on his lived experience - he was diagnosed with osteoporosis in 1998 after suffering his eighth fracture - Larry has served as Chair of the Canadian Osteoporosis Patient Network (COPN), as a member of OC’s National Board of Directors, and as a Research Ambassador for the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis of the Canadian Institute of Health Research. He currently sits on Osteoporosis Canada’s Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee, on the National Advisory Committee for Canada’s Fracture Liaison Service and he is also a patient partner on several research projects. Effective treatment and lifestyle changes have kept Larry fracture-free for more than 20 years.

Teresa O’Callaghan is an Executive Director in the Fraser Health Authority with responsibilities covering the Peace Arch & Delta Hospitals. She is also the Executive Lead, Regional Access & Flow Network, and Executive Lead for the Hospitalist Medicine Network. Teresa is a passionate and experienced healthcare leader. She is solution focused and brings vision and enthusiasm tempered with compassion, humour and an insatiable curiosity.

Agnes T Black is the Director, Health Services & Clinical Research and Knowledge Translation at Providence Health Care. She supports clinicians in research and KT projects, including leading the Practice-based Research Challenge and the KT Challenge programs. Aggie completed her BSN at the University of Washington, Seattle, and her Master of Public Health at Simon Fraser University. She is an adjunct professor at the UBC School of Nursing and Research Associate, Centre for Health Evaluation & Outcome Sciences (CHEOS).

Cindy Elliott is the Program Director for the Emergency Program and Access Services at Providence Health Care. Included in her portfolio are the EDs at St Paul’s Hospital and Mount Saint Joseph Hospital. Cindy completed her BSN in 1999 at the University of Victoria and her MSN in 2018 at UBC. Cindy has worked at Providence Health Care since graduating from nursing school, holding a variety of positions in Clinical Operations as well as ten years working in Professional Practice. In her current director role, Cindy has supported her teams through the transition to PHC’s new EHR, Cerner and since then, of course, navigating the onset and ongoing management of the our current pandemic.

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