Research

CIHR Strategic Research Training Program Inaugural Symposium:
21st Century Health Care: "Here, There, and Everywhere"

Featuring:

• Robin Kearns
  Department of Geography, University of Auckland
  Where Will Care Take Place?: 21st Century Health Care Settings and Sites
• Wendy Levinson
  Vice Chair, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto
  21st Century Patients and their Relationships with Care Providers
• Alejandro Jadad
  Director, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation & Rose Family Chair University Health Network, Toronto
  eHealth Innovations: 21st Century Health Care Service Provision

Discussion:

Transdisciplinary Scholarship in Health Care, Technology and Place

Research and Teaching Profiles

Faculty associated with the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (HPME) are involved in a broad range of research activities with a variety of organizations. Success of the HPME Knowledge Transfer initiative is dependent on presenting our stakeholders with a unified, clear image of the depth and breadth of Departmental expertise. To promote greater internal awareness of the knowledge developed through HPME, faculty research profiles will be included as a regular feature of this newsletter.

In this issue we feature research profiles from Terrence Sullivan and Alex Jadad:

• Terrence Sullivan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. He currently holds the position of Head, Division of Preventive Oncology at Cancer Care Ontario. His research focuses on public health, health policy and cancer prevention.
  
  
• Alex Jadad is a Professor with HPME. He is also Director, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation; Rose Family Chair in Supportive Care; Professor, Department of Anaesthesia; Canadian Research Chair in eHealth; and Senior Scientist, Division of Clinical Decision-Innovation. His research interests focus on how information and communications technologies can transform health and the health system.
  
  

+ + PROFILES OF THE MONTH + +

Terrence Sullivan, PhD

Education and Work Background

I obtained my undergraduate degree in science from Loyala College in 1972, my masters degree in psychology from Queen's university in 1974 and my PhD in Sociology from York University in 1989. My first job following my masters degree was in the field of neuro-psychological assessment in the department of clinical neuroscience at Victoria Hospital in London. Following a year working with Tibetan refugees in Northern India I returned to work in the psychology department at Sick Kids. I moved from Sick Kids to a 10 year period of working in community agencies dealing with children in families including Youthdale and Central Toronto Youth Services (CTYS), where I first got involved in policy work. Much of our work at CTYS was instrumental in reshaping the soon to be introduced Ontario Child and Family Services Act (1986). During this time I was drafted by the Ontario government to develop a plan for mental health services for children, which eventually appeared as Investing in Children (1988).

In 1989 I was recruited to the Premier's Council on Health Strategy and stood as its executive director through the latter days of the Peterson government and the early days of the Rae government, including a period as Deputy Minister. In 1992, I moved to the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs and coordinated Ontario's involvement throughout the Charlottetown negotiations as Assistant Deputy Minister of Constitutional Affairs and Federal- Provincial Relations. In 1993 I became the first full time CEO of what has now become the Institute for Work & Health. Since June of 2001 I have been VP, Preventive Oncology for Cancer Care Ontario.

Research Activities

My main areas of interest arise as a policy analyst and activist. They include approaches to human development, health and disability policy reform in Canada. My original PhD work was a study of law reform in Canada (Sexual Abuse and the Rights of Children, U of T Press, 1992). I have had a sustained involvement with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research as member of the advisory committee for both the Population and Human Development program and have followed closely the sometimes substantive but largely rhetorical uptake of these ideas by the federal and provincial governments in Canada. My interests in health reform matters in Canada are sketched out in two recent books (Health Reform: Public Success/Private Failure, Routledge, 1999 edited with D. Drache) and a more recent book arising from the work of colleagues within HPME in the Dialogue on Health Reform, supported by the Atkinson Foundation, in a book entitled First Do No Harm: Making Sense of Canadian Health Reform (Malcolm Lester Books, 2002).

With respect to disability policy much of the work of my colleagues and I associated with the Institute for Work and Health is sketched out in a collection I edited entitled Injury and The New World of Work (UBC Press, 2000), supported by the BC Royal Commission on Workers Compensation. Similarly the workplace laboratory within HealNet has much of its material included in a new book in press edited by John Frank and I provisionally titled Preventing and Managing Work-Related Disability (Taylor and Frances, forthcoming) supported by HealNet, a federal NCE. I maintain a hobby interest in the role of the WTO in health policy and hold a SSHRC grant with D.Drache in this area. I recently published a paper in Health Law In Canada on this topic with Esther Shainblum.

Teaching and Supervisory Responsibilities

I currently co-teach with Prof. Sue Horton, one graduate course currently listed in public health science on Public Policies to Improve Health. (CHL 5116 H Public Policies to Improve Health). I do committee work for students in HPME, PHS and occasionally within the faculty of Graduate Studies at York University.

Future Research

+ + + + +

Alejandro (Alex) R. Jadad, MD, DPhil, FRCPC

Born in Colombia, Dr. Jadad obtained his medical degree there in 1986, specializing in anaesthesiology. By the time he was 20 years of age and still a medical student, Dr. Jadad became a leading medical expert on cocaine in Colombia and an internationally sought after speaker. He published his first book at 25. In 1990 he moved to the United Kingdom and joined the University of Oxford, where he developed and evaluated analgesic interventions for the treatment of acute, chronic and cancer pain, witnessed the birth of the Cochrane Collaboration, and gained clinical expertise in pain relief, supportive cancer care and palliative medicine. In 1994 he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Oxford (Balliol College), becoming one of the first physicians in the world with a doctorate in knowledge synthesis. In 1995, he moved to Canada and joined the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics at McMaster University. At McMaster, he was Chief of the Health Information Research Unit; Director of the McMaster Evidence-Based Practice Centre; Co-Director of the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre; Associate Medical Director of the Program in Evidence-Based Care for Cancer Care Ontario and Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics. In October 2000, he moved to the Toronto.

Now, Alex is tireless in his pursuit of his vision for the future of health care. He is developing a 'mini-model' of the world to accelerate research on how information and communications technologies can transform health and the health system. His research examines innovative ways to help people, regardless of who they are or where they live, use state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICTs), with enthusiasm, proficiency and confidence, to achieve the highest possible levels of health and to help the health system make the most efficient use of available resources. His research blends interests in eHealth innovation; supportive and palliative care; evidence-based decision-making; the role of the public in research; the relationship between the public and the health system in the information age; and eLearning. He is actively involved in several international academic-private sector partnerships to improve the quality of the research infrastructure to accelerate the transformation of the health system in the information age, and minimize inequality in health in societies across the world.

Alex is member of HEALNet, a Canadian Network of Centres of Excellence; of the National Health Reports Expert Group, Canadian Institute for Health Information; and of the Board of Scientific and Policy Advisors, American Council on Science and Health. In 1998 and 1999, he was one of the external advisors to the US Department of Health and Human Services' Scientific Panel on Interactive Communications in Health Care. From 1996 to 2000, he was Editor of the Cochrane Consumers and Communication Review Group and is now one of the Editors of the Empirical Methodological Studies Review Group. In addition, Alex is now Chair of the Consumer Health Informatics Working Group of the American and International Medical Informatics Associations, which will enhance his ability to influence projects on the use of information technology by the public, worldwide.

In 1997, he received a 'National Health Research Scholars Award', by Health Canada, to support his program "Knowledge synthesis and transfer, consumers and evidence-based health care." In 1998, his book Randomised Controlled Trials was published and launched by the British Medical Journal as part of the 50th anniversary of clinical trials in health care. In 1998, he received one of 'Canada's Top 40 Under 40' awards, in recognition for his contributions before the age of 40. In 1999, he received a 'Premier's Research Excellence Award', which supports the program of research entitled "Information technology and evidence-based health care: a needed partnership for the 21st century". In 2000, he became the Inaugural Rose Family Chair in Supportive Care at University of Toronto, and the first Director of the Program in eHealth Innovation at University Health Network and University of Toronto. In 2001, he was featured by Time Magazine as one of the new Canadians who will shape the country in the 21st century. In 2002, he was awarded a Canada Research Chair in eHealth Innovation by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and was the recipient of the 2002 New Pioneers Award in Science and Technology.

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