Catherine Brookman
Ontario Community Support Association
Dr. Catherine Brookman is currently Vice President, Research and Program Development for Saint Elizabeth Healthcare where she leads the acquisition of strategic research opportunities for the advancement of health care knowledge and its translation into practice. Catherine is also leading the further development of the Personal Support Worker program through capacity building and health system integration. Catherine has a Doctorate from the University of Toronto with an emphasis on Health Care and services for seniors, a Masters degree with an emphasis on Adult Education and Gerontology and a Bachelor of Science degree with an emphasis in Developmental Psychology.
For over 20 years, Catherine has served in senior management positions including Executive Director of health care organizations. Catherine’s most recent research focused on the Personal Support Worker – Improving their work experience in both the LTC and community sectors and the Management of Incontinence in Ontario LTC Homes. Catherine has served on a number of provincial and local advisory committees including being the current Co-chair of the Seniors Health Research Transfer Network of Ontario (SHRTN), a member of the Ontario Home Care Research and Knowledge Exchange Steering Committee, a member of the Aging at Home Strategy Expert Review Panel and Board member of the Health and Safety Association for Government Services.
Josie D’Avernas
University of Waterloo Research Institute for Aging
Josie is Associate Director of the Schlegel-University of Waterloo Research Institute for Aging, an innovative arrangement involving the University of Waterloo, Conestoga College and ten long term care facilities in south-western Ontario. The RIA attracts research projects to long term care homes with a view to immediate translation of research to practical training application for caregivers. She is also Vice President Program Development and Innovation for Schlegel Seniors Villages.
Prior to this dual role of research and program development, she was President of Health Promotion Consulting Inc., a Kitchener-based consulting company specializing in strategic planning, training and consultation supports, facilitation, policy analysis, literature synthesis, knowledge transfer, evaluation and research.
Between her current and past work, Josie has developed a strong understanding of knowledge exchange from many perspectives, having worked from every perspective including research, policy and practice. Josie has a MSc.
Larry W. Chambers
Elizabeth Bruyère Research Institute
Dr. Chambers is the President and Chief Scientist of the Élisabeth-Bruyère Research Institute (ÉBRI), a partnership of Bruyère Continuing Care and the Universityof Ottawa. As well, Dr. Chambers is Vice-President, Research, Bruyère Continuing Care. Bruyère Continuing Care, a bilingual organization, is one of the largest academic continuing care centres of its kind in Ontario with 751 beds.
Dr. Chambers is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine and the Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, as well as in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa and an Affiliate Scientist in the Institute of Population Health. Within the Faculty of Graduate and Post-Doctoral Studies, he is a supervisor in the PhD Population Health Program. He is Chair of the Career Scientist Review Panel of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care. As well, he is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, United Kingdom.
Dr. Chambers is past co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Seniors’ Health Research Transfer Network (SHRTN). He has authored and co-authored over 130 peer-reviewed articles and books. He has worked as a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (Copenhagen), the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Montpellier, France.
Paulina Chow
St. Joseph’s Care Group
Paulina has over seventeen years of experience working in the long term care field. As Vice President, Long Term Care and Housing with St. Joseph’s Care Group, Thunder Bay, she oversees two long term care homes, a senior citizens’ apartment building with a support services program, an Alzheimer day program and the operation of a community centre. Prior to her employment with St. Joseph’s Care Group, Paulina held the position of Executive Director, District of Thunder Bay Home for the Aged, Pinewood Court, Thunder Bay, and Birchwood Terrace, Terrace Bay.
Paulina has been actively involved in numerous activities at the community and provincial level. She is currently a member of the Board for the Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes and Services for Seniors, and Co-Chair of the Ontario Long Term Care Management Information System Advisory Work Group. She is also a member of the Northern Ontario e-Health Information and Technology Planning Project Phase II and Phase III Tactical Planning Steering Committee, a Pan North Project in partnership with Northeast Local Health Integration Network and Northwest Local Health Integration Network. At the local level, Paulina is the Chair of the Northwestern Ontario Long Term Care Best Practice Guideline Advisory Committee and a member of the Seniors’ Services Advisory Committee, Northwest Local Health Integration Network, Thunder Bay.
Previously Paulina obtained a Bachelor of Administration degree from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She is also a Certified Health Executive with the Canadian College of Health Service Executives, Ottawa. Paulina is excited to be a member of the SHRTN Board to share experiences and promote seniors health research knowledge transfer to the long term care and community sectors.
David Conn
Baycrest Centre
Dr. Conn is currently the Vice-President of Medical Services and Academic Education and Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. He is the Co-Chair of the Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health and Chair of the Coalition’s National Guidelines Project. He is Past President of the Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry.
He completed his Medical Degree at Trinity College, Dublin, and his training in psychiatry was carried out at the University of Toronto. He subsequently completed a Fellowship in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
He joined the Department of Psychiatry at Baycrest in 1983 and has been the Department Head since 1992. He has a keen interest in telemedicine and is currently the Medical Director of Telehealth Services at Baycrest. He is also Medical Director of the Mood and Related Disorders Clinic and Co-Director of the Brain Health Centre.
His academic interests include nursing home psychiatry, the psychiatric consequences of brain disease in the elderly and late life mood disorders. He is the co-editor of three textbooks including "Practical Psychiatry in the Long-Term Care Home: A Handbook for Staff”. He received the 2005 Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry Award for Outstanding Contributions to Geriatric Psychiatry in Canada.
Lisa Droppo
Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres
Lisa is the Chief Analytics, Policy and Programs with her team they support the 14 member CCACs as they work collectively on activities and projects in the areas of client services, policy and research, performance management and accountability including procurement, information management and education. Lisa continues to play a significant role in strategic projects and partnerships with other health care associations.
Lisa has worked in the healthcare sector for 17 years holding leadership roles in teaching, acute, rehabilitation and continuing care hospitals and in the community in Canada and the UK. She has published in the area of patient safety and risk management.
John Hirdes
Chair, Ontario Home Care Research and Knowledge Exchange
Dr. Hirdes is a Professor of Health Studies and Gerontology at the University of Waterloo; is cross-appointed to the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto; and to Gerontological Studies at McMaster University; and is Scientific Director of the Homewood Research Institute in Guelph. As a Fellow and Board Member of interRAI, an international consortium of researchers from over 22 countries, Dr. Hirdes (along with Dr. Katherine Berg of the University of Toronto) represents interRAI in Canada. Dr. Hirdes led interRAI efforts to create the Mental Health and Community Mental Health assessment systems, the System for Classification of In-Patient Psychiatry, and Home Care Quality Indicators (as co-PI), and is a member of the interRAI committee that produced the 2005 suite of instruments.
His primary areas of interest are geriatric assessment, mental health, health care and service delivery, health information management, social determinants of health, and quantitative methods.
Aura Kagan
Aphasia Institute
Aura Kagan, PhD is the Executive Director and Director of Applied Research and Education at the Aphasia Institute in Toronto. The Institute is a non-profit teaching and learning agency dedicated to service, education, research, awareness and advocacy for all those living with aphasia, including families. Aura received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto. She is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Together with past and present colleagues at the Aphasia Institute, Aura has been instrumental in the development of Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia (SCA™) – an innovative tool for increasing communicative access to life participation. Aura led the Aphasia Institute team that developed A-FROM – Living with Aphasia: Framework for Outcome Measurement and ALA (Assessment for Living with Aphasia). A-FROM is a conceptual guide for thinking about outcome measurement in aphasia and is in line with the thinking of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Aura has published and presented extensively in the area of aphasia and communicative access.
Sandra Kendall
Ontario Health Libraries Association
Sandra Kendall BA, MLS from the University of Toronto, Canada has worked in the for-profit sectors including advertising, publishing, marketing, real estate, banking and utilities; public libraries, academic libraries and as a library services consultant. She has also launched libraries, created and re-designed space plans, and re-positioned libraries.
Sandra is a member of the Mount Sinai Hospital – Research Ethics Board and Chair Seniors Advisory Committee, Township of King
Sandra decided to return to her early beginnings by going back to medical librarianship. The atmosphere is challenging and intellectually rewarding. It is fun yet the bottom-line is to provide the best patient care services. This “bottom-line” of best patient care services is something that you do not have the pleasure of pursuing elsewhere. After but 10 years as the Director of Library Services for Mount Sinai Hospital, she is still surprised at the difference the library makes to clinical decision making. And she looks forward to more possibilities in further developing medical library services in Ethiopia and East Africa.
Barbara Kilbourn
Seniors Representative
Barbara Kilbourn brings her experience from both careers in the private and public sectors. She has worked at the management level in a large corporation and co-owned a small business. She has extensive experience in the public sector with several non profit charitable organizations, as a volunteer board member, executive member or president.
Kilbourn has also been a senior administrator for several small non profit organizations. She is currently on the boards of Care Watch and Canadian Pensioners Concerned, Ontario Division, where she is serving as President. She has also been serving as a senior representative on the Toronto Central LHIN’s Aging at Home Steering Committee. She is semi-retired from the Ontario Women’s Health Network, a network of individuals and organizations that promotes women’s health. She now sits on the SHRTN board of directors as a representative of seniors.
Ken Le Clair
Geriatric Psychiatry Services
J. Kenneth Le Clair, MD, FRCPC is a Professor and Chair in the Geriatric Psychiatry Division, Department of Psychiatry, and Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University. Ken is also the Regional Development Coordinator of Geriatric Psychiatry Services, Partnerships and Community Services, Providence Care – Mental Health Services in Kingston and has interfaculty affiliations with the University of Western Ontario – Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and as an Adjunct Professor at Sheridan College.
Ken contributes to many provincial and national organizations, including the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Ken is the Chair, Ontario Interdisciplinary Council on Aging and Health, Council of Ontario Universities; Chair, Southeastern Ontario Regional Dementia Network; Member, Research Policy Committee Alzheimer Society of Canada; Co-Chair, Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health; Past President, Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry (CAGP); Member, Seniors Health Research Transfer Network (SHRTN) Board of Directors; Co-Chair, Alzheimer Knowledge Exchange of Ontario ; Former Chair, Policy Framework and Implementation Guidelines for Older Persons with Mental Health/Psychiatric Needs, Ministry of Health, Government of Ontario; Senior Project Consultant, P.I.E.C.E.S. Educational Strategy in Long-Term Care, Province of Ontario and Nova Scotia. Ken has testified as an expert witness at the Casa Verde Inquest, and works as a consultant for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
Ken’s passions and interests are in the areas of Knowledge Transfer and Exchange in Mental Health in Community Primary Care and Senior Health and interdisciplinary education in aging and mental health and shared care.
Birgit Pianosi
Ontario Interdisciplinary Council on Aging and Health
Dr. Birgit Pianosi is Chair of the Gerontology program at Huntington University. She received her Ph.D. in Psycho-Gerontology from Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany. She also holds a Master’s degree in Human Development from Laurentian University and a
second Master’s degree in Psycho-Gerontology from Friedrich-Alexander
University.
Birgit is a tenured Associate Professor at Huntington University, teaching the introduction to gerontology and upper-year courses on research skills in gerontology, and supervising the fourth-year thesis students. Birgit is intensively involved with research at the community level.
Her primary research interest focuses on the identification of critical skills required to be a gerontologist. She is attempting to develop a generalization system which might prove useful to the credentialing of future gerontologists. Birgit also developed the content of the Senior Smart web site, a project of the Ontario Senior’ Secretariat, Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, and the Ontario Gerontology Association. Birgit is the Chair of the Ontario Interdisciplinary Council on Aging and Health. She is an active member of the Advisory Council of the National Association for Professional Gerontologists. In addition to her work as a gerontologist, Birgit is the Chair of the Sudbury German Language School.
John Puxty
Providence Care
Dr. John Puxty is currently an Associate Professor and Chair of the Division of Geriatric Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Queen’s University, Chief of Staff of Providence Care, and Director of the Southeastern Ontario Regional Geriatric Program. He is co-director of the Centre for Studies in Aging and Health at Providence Care. He received his medical qualifications in Britain. He has certification as an Internal Medicine Specialist in Geriatric Medicine in both Britain and Canada.
He is an experienced academic geriatrician who has an extensive list of publications and academic presentations, and is the co-editor of two books. He has special interests in the medical administration, areas of development and evaluation of specialized geriatric services, distance education and the use of information technology both as an aid to learning and strategies for effective Knowledge and Information transfer.
Sue VanderBent
Ontario Home Care Association
Susan D. VanderBent, BA, BSW, MSW, MHSc, CHE, is the Executive Director of the Ontario Home Care Association, holds a faculty appointment in the Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, and is a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto.
A health care advocate, Ms. VanderBent represents the OHCA on numerous provincial Committees and makes presentations to groups on the role and value of the home care sector as it supports health system transformation. She is the past Chair of the Ontario Health Providers Alliance which represents major health related associations in the province.
Tim Burns
Ministry of Health & long-term Care
Tim Burns has been with the province since 1988. He started at the Ministry of Housing and has worked in various capacities on Community Economic Development, Labour Market and Social Assistance Issues, and Information Management. He joined the Ministry of Health and long-term Care in 2000 and is currently the Director of the Performance Improvement and Compliance Branch. The role of this group is to work with delivery partners to accelerate health system performance improvement opportunities in areas of provincial priority or identified need. The branch also has responsibility for quality assurance programs and initiatives such as the Compliance Management Program for Long-Term Care Homes.
Élisabeth Esteves
Ontario Seniors’ Secretariat
Élisabeth Esteves is the Manager of Policy Initiatives, Ontario Seniors’ Secretariat. The Secretariat supports Ontario’s Minister Responsible for Seniors in her advocacy role on behalf of Ontario seniors across all provincial government activities. The Secretariat undertakes policy initiatives that improve the quality of life of Ontario seniors, and supports public education efforts for and about older Ontarians.
From 1990-1999, Élisabeth held various positions in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the former Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations managing teams of policy and program professionals. Elizabeth received her M.A., Political Science, degree from the University of Toronto.
David Harvey
Alzheimer Society of Ontario
David Harvey has worked in community services for the elderly for much of his career. He served with the Ministries of Community and Social Services and Health and Long-Term care in southwestern Ontario, where he nurtured the growth in long term care services over a 20year period. At the corporate level, David served as a senior manager in areas concerned with health system planning and accountability.
David has Masters degrees in Library Science and Adult Education. He has promoted continuous learning within the long term care and was involved in the origins of knowledge transfer and leadership development initiatives in long-term care.
David is Chief Member Services Officer with the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, assisting it and its member chapters to participate fully in Ontario’s health system transformation.
Deirdre Luesby
SHRTN
Deirdre Luesby is the Executive Director of the Seniors Health Research Transfer Network in Ontario. She started working with the SHRTN team as the program manager for SHRTN with the Elisabeth Bruyère Research Institute in year one. She took on the coordination of the provincial network in year two (2006-07).
Deirdre is a consultant who specializes in the management of organizational change, internal communications, facilitation and process consultation. She has over 25 years of management experience, spanning the government, private, and not-for-profit sectors. She holds an MA from Concordia in Human Systems Intervention, an Honours BA from Carleton in Directed Interdisciplinary Studies (Design Management) and is currently completing the requirements for a Personal and Professional Coaching certification from Concordia.
Vasanthi Srinivsan
Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
Vasanthi Srinivasan has considerable senior management experience in policy and program development; and research, both domestically and internationally.
Following an assignment at Status of Women Canada and the Public Service Commission as lead on equity issues, she was Project Director at Citizenship and Immigration Canada and a key member of the Metropolis Project, established to conduct policy research on immigrant integration in cities, in eighteen countries.
From 1997 to 2001, as Director of Outreach at the Policy Research Initiative in the Privy Council Office, she represented Canada at various international fora, think-tanks and academia, and lead work with research institutes in various countries. In May 2000, she was seconded to the UK Cabinet Office in the Performance and Innovation Unit to develop an immigration policy and to create a strategic futures group for horizontal policy development.
In 2001, she went to Health Canada and joined the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch as Director, Strategic Policy and later as the Acting Director General Strategic Policy, Planning and Analysis. In September 2002, she moved to the Ontario and Nunavut Region as the Regional Director, Strategic Policy and Intergovernmental Affairs as the Acting Regional Director General.
In September 2005, she joined the Provincial Government on an Executive Interchange from Health Canada as Director of Population Health Policy and Planning and Women’s Health Branch within the Health System Strategy Division, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. In April 2007, she was appointed Director, Health System Planning and Research Branch and is the lead for the Health System Planning and Research in Ontario.
Vasanthi holds a Ph.D from the University of Ottawa.