OPENING KEYNOTE (NOV 30 9:15-9:45 AM)

Dr. Jane Philpott is the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Director of the School of Medicine at Queen’s University, and CEO of the Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Organization. She is a medical doctor, a Professor of Family Medicine, and former Member of Parliament.

Prior to politics, Jane spent the first decade of her medical career in Niger, West Africa. She was a family doctor in Markham-Stouffville for 17 years and became Chief of Family Medicine at Markham Stouffville Hospital in 2008. From 2015 to 2019 she served as federal Minister of Health, Minister of Indigenous Services, President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government. She currently serves as the Ministers’ Special Advisor for the Ontario Health Data Platform.

CLOSING KEYNOTE (DEC 1 11:15-11:45 AM)

Dr. Danielle Martin is Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Martin spent eight years as a senior hospital executive, most recently as Executive Vice President and Lead Medical Executive at Women’s College Hospital.

Dr. Martin is a respected leader in Canadian medicine and well-recognized media spokesperson, regularly named on lists such as Medical Post’s Power List. Her 2014 presentation to a United States Senate Subcommittee about the Canadian health care system has been viewed by over 30 million people across the globe.

In 2019, Dr. Martin became the youngest physician ever to receive the F.N.G. Starr Award, the highest honour available to Canadian Medical Association members.

WELCOMING REMARKS AND ORIENTATION TO THE MEETING (NOV 30 9-9:05 AM)

Dr. Andrew Pinto is the founder and director of the Upstream Lab, a research team focused on tackling social determinants of health, population health management, and using data science to enable Learning Health Systems. He holds the CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Upstream Prevention.

He is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine specialist and family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital of Unity Health Toronto and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. He is also the Director of the University of Toronto Practice-Based Research Network (UTOPIAN), the lead for clinical research of Ontario’s POPLAR network, and the founder of the Canadian Primary Care Trials Network.

Among other roles, he serves on the Institute Advisory Board of CIHR’s Institute for Population and Public Health, is an adjunct scientist at the Institute for Work and Health, and an honorary senior lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

10 FACETS OF THE CRISIS IN ACCESS TO PRIMARY CARE (NOV 30 9:05-9:15 AM)

Dr. Mélanie Ann Smithman is a postdoctoral researcher at the Upstream Lab in Ontario, a primary care access quality improvement coach at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec and part of the primary care innovations working group at the Quebec College of Family Physicians.

Research interests: building scale-up-ready primary care systems, open and social innovations for primary care access, equity and resilience, driving primary care change through implementation science/practice and quality improvement, rapid research methods for timely and impactful evidence, strategic foresight in policy making

BUILDING SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO PRIMARY CARE FOR INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES (NOV 30 9:45-10:15 AM)

Allie Kinnaird is the Director of Policy & Government Relations at the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council. She previously served as the Executive Director of the Ontario Medical Association Section on General & Family Practice (SGFP).

BUILDING SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO PRIMARY CARE FOR INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES (NOV 30 9:45-10:15 AM)

Dr. Suzanne Shoush is a First Nations/Black (St’atl’imx and Sudanese) physician, mother and advocate. She has spent more than a decade providing healthcare in Toronto’s shelter systems and in rural and remote communities across Ontario. She is the Indigenous Health faculty-lead with the University of Toronto Department of Family and Community Medicine, and the Director of Indigenous Health for Inner City Health Associates. She is the lead physician of several culture based, trauma informed, culturally safe and low barrier comprehensive primary care clinics including Auduzhe Mino Nesewinong, Call Auntie Clinic, and Odeimin Clinics. She is a long term member of the Unity Health FNIM Community Advisory Panel and inaugural Lead Physician for Office of Indigenous Wellness, Reconciliation and Partnerships at Unity Health Toronto.

PATIENT AND PUBLIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A BETTER PRIMARY CARE SYSTEM (NOV 30 1:15-2 PM)

Dr. Tara Kiran is the Fidani Chair of Improvement and Innovation at the University of Toronto. A family doctor and renowned primary care researcher, she investigates how changes in the health care system impact patients, particularly the most vulnerable. In her research and practice, she develops and tests solutions to make health care more inclusive and more effective.

Much of Dr. Kiran’s research has evaluated how primary care reforms have impacted quality of care. She also leads research to directly improve quality of care including initiatives to measure and reduce care disparities, engage patients in health service improvement, and support physicians to learn from data. In 2022, she launched OurCare, a national initiative to engage the public in co-creating the blueprint for a stronger, more equitable primary care system in Canada.

Dr. Kiran practices family medicine at the St. Michael’s Hospital Academic Family Health Team. She is the Vice Chair for Quality and Innovation in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, a Scientist at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.

PATIENT AND PUBLIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A BETTER PRIMARY CARE SYSTEM (NOV 30 1:15-2 PM)

Sandra is a Project Analyst / Quality Assurance Specialist at Shared Health | Shared Services in Manitoba, responsible for leading and testing software deployment in a variety of acute care settings.

Her focus for this purpose is driven more, however, by her experiences as a mother to two teenagers who have required significant care from the primary and acute care systems in Manitoba over the past 5 years. Their struggles to secure adequate care, in a timely manner, drove her desire to become involved in patient engagement and feedback mechanisms. It is her desire that her shared experiences as a mother, and care provider for two aging parents, can be used to help improve the care experienced by others in similar situations.

PATIENT AND PUBLIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A BETTER PRIMARY CARE SYSTEM (NOV 30 1:15-2 PM)

Dr. Neb Kovacina is a family physician at St Mary's Hospital Academic Family Medicine Group, in Montreal, and the Quality Improvement program director at the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University. He is the clinical director of Health Quality Academy and a member of the Quality Improvement Advisory Table of Quebec's Ministry of Health and Social Services.

Dr. Kovacina contributed to capacity building in practice improvement in primary care, through different national and provincial initiatives, such as Practice Improvement Initiative of College of Family Physicians of Canada and Person Health Care Home of Correctional Services Canada. He is leading and is involved in different initiatives, research projects and expert tables on health system improvement, public engagement and access to primary care.

PANEL 1: OVERVIEW OF THE PRIMARY CARE CRISIS (NOV 30 10:30-11:30 AM)

Dr. Rick Glazier is a Family Physician and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). He is a staff family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and a Scientist in its Centre for Urban Health Solutions. At the University of Toronto, Dr. Glazier is a Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation.

Dr. Glazier's research focuses on evaluating health system transformation, primary care health services delivery models, health of disadvantaged populations, management of chronic conditions, and population-based and geographic methods for improving equity in health.

PANEL 1: OVERVIEW OF THE PRIMARY CARE CRISIS (NOV 30 10:30-11:30 AM)

Dr. Notisha Massaquoi is an Assistant Professor in Health Education and Promotion with the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto Scarborough and holds cross-appointments to the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Temerty Faculty of Medicine's Dept of Family & Community Medicine.

Dr. Massaquoi is a community-based researcher utilizing mixed methods to interrogate anti-Black racism and highlight the experiences of Black communities navigating institutional structures and systems in Canada, with a primary focus on the social determinants of health and health disparities. In her early social work career, Dr. Massaquoi initiated several organizations serving Black communities in Canada — including Africans in Partnership Against AIDS and TAIBU Community Health Centre. She also established the primary care programs and served for two decades as the Executive Director of Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Centre in Toronto — the only Community Health Centre in North America designed to provide specialized primary healthcare for Black and racialized women.

PANEL 1: OVERVIEW OF THE PRIMARY CARE CRISIS (NOV 30 10:30-11:30 AM)

Dr. Andrew Boozary is a primary care physician, policy practitioner, researcher, and founding executive director of the Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine at the University Health Network. His work at the intersection of health policy, social justice and equitable health care delivery aims to improve health outcomes for marginalized populations.

During the pandemic, Dr. Boozary served as co-lead of the Ontario Health Toronto Region COVID-19 Homelessness Response and holds the Dalla Lana Professorship in Policy Innovation at the University of Toronto. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Public Health Review and served in senior advisory roles for policymakers at various levels of government both nationally and abroad on public policy issues ranging from primary care reform to the implementation of pharmacare.

PANEL 3: TACKLING THE CRISIS IN PRIMARY CARE WHILE BUILDING AN UPSTREAM HEALTH SYSTEM (NOV 30, 2-3 PM)

Dr. Emily Gard Marshall is a Professor in the Dalhousie Department of Family Medicine Primary Care Research Unit, cross-appointed with Community Health and Epidemiology, and Psychiatry, as well as a Nova Scotia Health Affiliated Scientist, and Director of the BRIC-Nova Scotia Strategy for Patient Oriented Research Primary Health Care Network.

Her mixed methods research examines primary healthcare from patient, provider, and system perspectives to address the quintuple aim: promoting population health, equity, optimizing costs, enhancing patient experience, and supporting care team well-being. Foci include access, continuity, and comprehensiveness to improve equity and optimize outcomes across the life course, involving population data and equity-deserving populations. She leads multiple pan-Canadian studies including the CIHR COVID-19 Rapid Response funded PUPPY-Study.

PANEL 3: TACKLING THE CRISIS IN PRIMARY CARE WHILE BUILDING AN UPSTREAM HEALTH SYSTEM (NOV 30, 2-3 PM)

Dr. Michael Green is the Brian Hennen Chair and Head of the Department of Family Medicine at Queen’s University, and is a Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences. He is also a Senior Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

In 2018 he was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and served on many expert committees including the Ontario Expert Panel on Wait Times in Primary Care, the Advisory Committee on Ontario’s Immunization System Review, the College of Family Physicians of Canada Indigenous Health Working Group and Patient’s Medical Home Steering Committee, and Health Quality Ontario’s Primary Care Advisory Committee.

He has an active family practice at the Queen’s Family Health Team. He also practiced in public health as a Medical Officer with Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch from 2003-2014. His research covers a broad range of health services and policy research areas with an emphasis on primary care, quality of care, equity in health, and Indigenous health.

PANEL 3: TACKLING THE CRISIS IN PRIMARY CARE WHILE BUILDING AN UPSTREAM HEALTH SYSTEM (NOV 30, 2-3 PM)

Dr. Mylaine Breton is an Associate Professor at Université de Sherbrooke’s Department of Department of Social Science and Medicine and holds a Canadian Research Chair in clinical governance on primary health care.

Her research program for improving health care organisation is comprised of applied research projects undertaken in partnership with clinicians and managers. Its focus is innovations to improve accessibility and continuity of primary health care, such as a centralised waiting list for patients without a primary health care provider and advanced access models.

PANEL 3: TACKLING THE CRISIS IN PRIMARY CARE WHILE BUILDING AN UPSTREAM HEALTH SYSTEM (NOV 30, 2-3 PM)

Beth Cowper-Fung is the Clinic Director / Lead Nurse Practitioner for the Georgina Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic in Sutton Ontario since 2011. Beth has her Master in Nursing from the University of Toronto as well as her Primary Health Care NP Certificate from the Council of Ontario University Programs in Nursing (COUPN). The Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic interdisciplinary team provides health care to 3600 residents of Georgina. Beth is a member of the Joint Executive Steering Committee of the Southlake Community Ontario Health Team as well as a member of the Primary Care Council.

Beth is also member of the Ontario Health: Primary Care Quality Advisory Committee and the Ministry of Health: Provincial Primary Care Advisory Table. She is a Past President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario (2018-19) as well as a Past President of the Nurse Practitioners Association of Ontario (2012-13). Beth is currently on the Executive of the Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic Association supporting 25 NPLCs across the province.

PANEL 2 MODERATOR: PROVINCIAL/TERRITORIAL PERSPECTIVES (NOV 30, 11:30-12:15 PM)

Mathieu is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Pinto at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (in the Social and Behavioural Health Sciences division). His project explores the role of peer-support initiatives in improving access to primary care for people experiencing homelessness. Mathieu is also a practicing family physician and an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Université de Montréal Department of Family and Emergency Medicine. He works in a community-based family medicine teaching unit and family health team in downtown Montreal. He is also part of a community clinic delivering care to people experiencing homelessness.

Apart from medicine, he also studied Social Work and worked as a community worker in different community organizations. He completed a Master’s degree in Medical Anthropology from McGill University (2020) and received his Medical Degree from Université de Montréal (2015).

PANEL 3 MODERATOR: TACKLING THE CRISIS IN PRIMARY CARE WHILE BUILDING AN UPSTREAM HEALTH SYSTEM (NOV 30, 2-3 PM)

Q. Jane Zhao is a Health Policy PhD student at the University of Toronto, supervised by Dr. Andrew Pinto. Building on nine years of embedded health services research, their interests lie at the intersection of primary care, team-based care, and health systems research. Their thesis aims to characterize successful components of interprofessional, primary care teams in high-income countries.

They are a settler, first-generation immigrant, artist, writer, and climber. They are a Junior Fellow at Massey College, recipient of the Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship (22-23) and School of Cities Urban Graduate Student Fellowship (21-22), and a graduate of the Narrative Medicine Masters at Columbia University.

Talk to them about Dorothy Smith, comics, and sustainability.

PANEL 2: PROVINCIAL/TERRITORIAL PERSPECTIVES (NOV 30, 11:30-12:15 PM)

Dr. Dumas Pilon is a family physician, co-founder of the Indigo Clinic in Montreal, Québec, and an assistant professor in the department of Family Medicine at McGill University. She taught at St-Mary’s family medicine teaching unit for fifteen years.

She has led many initiatives related to obstetrical care, access and innovation with different organization including the Ministère de la santé et des services sociaux (MSSS), the Canadian Foundation for health improvement and the Quebec College of family physician of which she has been the president from 2014 to 2017. Among these initiatives, she led the eConsult Quebec project as well as three Innovation Symposium. She now works as a medical advisor for the MSSS.

Her research interests are in the domains of continuity of care, access, innovations, health policy and ethics.

PANEL 2: PROVINCIAL/TERRITORIAL PERSPECTIVES (NOV 30, 11:30-12:15 PM)

Lynn Edwards is the Senior Director for the Access and Flow Network and the Frailty and Elder Care Network for Nova Scotia Health. Prior to this, Lynn was Senior Director of Primary Health Care, Family Practice and Chronic Disease with the Nova Scotia Health Authority and led the development of a provincial vision and plan for the primary health care system during the transition to one health authority.

Lynn has had the opportunity to work in both rural and urban Nova Scotia as both a health administrator and as a clinical dietitian working in a variety of inter-professional collaborative teams. She has worked at the provincial Department of Health in primary care and as Director of Acute Care and has held positions on the International Diabetes Federation, Canadian Diabetes Association, Canadian Obesity Network, co-chair of the Canadian Chronic Care Network and as a principle investigator for the Diabetes Stages of Change research study.

Health system integration and quality improvement has been an area of interest and professional focus throughout her career.

PANEL 2: PROVINCIAL/TERRITORIAL PERSPECTIVES (NOV 30, 11:30-12:15 PM)

Jessica Murphy is the Acting Director of Integrated Health Services for the Government of Yukon, located on the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation and the Ta’an Kwach’an Council. She is originally from unceded, unsurrendered Anishinaabe Algonquin Territory, also known as Ottawa, Ontario. She holds a Master of Social Work from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Nursing from the University of Ottawa.

Jessica has spent most of her career working in mental health, first as a frontline nurse and then in a variety of leadership roles. Her roles have included her positions as Supervisor of the Psychiatric Outreach Program and the Manager of Health Services, both with Yukon Government’s - Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services branch. Jessica had an integral role in the implementation of Whitehorse’s first Supervised Consumption Site and the development of a Mobile Crisis Team. Jessica’s portfolio in her current role includes a Chronic Conditions Support Program, a bilingual primary health care clinic, the Yukon Midwifery Program, and the development of the new Whitehorse Walk-in-Clinic.

Jessica is interested in developing engaged and empowered interdisciplinary health care teams that work to their fullest capacity and provide high quality, person-centred care. She is passionate about integrating a mental health perspective into all health services.

In her free time, Jessica enjoys playing hockey, cross-country skiing, hiking and photography. She lives with her partner, their son and their two Labrador retrievers Kepler and Atlas.

PANEL 2: PROVINCIAL/TERRITORIAL PERSPECTIVES (NOV 30, 11:30-12:15 PM)

Penny Higdon is the Director of Strategy and Innovation with the Primary Health Care Branch at the Department of Health, Government of New Brunswick.

Penny has a background in Nursing and has spent 30 years working in a variety of roles, from front line ( acute care, home care, community health, and public health) to leadership roles including management, policy and program development. Most recently, during the pandemic, she was the Director of the provincial COVID response team at the Department of Health and has been highly involved in the policy and program direction for the current Primary Care Transformation in New Brunswick.

WORKING GROUP SESSION 2A: PRIMARY CARE WORKFORCE AND SOLUTIONS (DEC 1)

Dr. Bourgeault is a Professor in the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies at the University of Ottawa and the University Research Chair in Gender, Diversity and the Professions. She leads the Canadian Health Workforce Network, the Empowering Women Leaders in Health initiative and co-leads the Team Primary Care: Training for Transformation project. Dr. Bourgeault has garnered an international reputation for her research on the health workforce, particularly from a gender lens.

WORKING GROUP SESSION 2B: FINANCING AND FUNDING (DEC 1)

Dr. Laporte is Director of the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, where she is Professor of Health Economics. She is also Director of the Canadian Centre of Health Economics and President of the International Health Economics Association. She serves in a number of editorial roles including as co-editor of the journal Healthcare Papers and Associate Editor for Health Economics.

Professor Laporte is an internationally recognized scholar with expertise in dynamic microeconomic theory and the application of econometric methods to address questions related to health policy. Her work has centred on a set of themes: modelling of individual health capital accumulation and addictive behaviours; health human resource modelling; and modelling the impact of policy changes on the performance of health care organizations such as institutional long-term care and hospitals. Her more recent work, in collaboration with her students, has focused on the impact of health conditions and socio-economic circumstance in early life on later-life outcomes.

WORKING GROUP SESSION 2C: LEVERAGING DATA, NEW TOOLS, AND AI TO ADDRESS THE CRISIS (DEC 1)

Dr. Steele-Gray holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Implementing Digital Health Innovation. She is a Scientist at the Science of Care Institute and in the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health, an Associate Professor in the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Dr. Steele Gray’s program of work focuses on the role of digital health in supporting integrated and person-centred care delivery for patients with complex care needs, applying implementation science theory and approaches, along with evaluation methods to uncover to how best to integrate technology in novel delivery models. Key to her transformational work is her international leadership in the areas of digital health and integrated care, notably through her work with International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), where she is a Senior Associate and co-leads a Special Interest Group in Digital Health Enabling Integrated Care.

She is also the Canadian lead for the Open Digital Health, non-profit organization seeking to drive accessibility and spread of digital health solutions to improve care delivery, and the co-lead and co-founder of the International Goal-Oriented Care Learning Collaborative, an academic consortium seeking to advance adoption of person-centred goal-oriented care.