8:00 — 8:45 Breakfast
Setting the Stage for AI Ready Health Systems
8:45 — 9:00
Helen Angus
Payal Agarwal
Payal Agarwal is a Researcher at the Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health Systems Solutions and Virtual Care, and a practicing Family Physician. Her research focuses on understanding how digital technology can enable innovative, person-centered care models, including the evaluation of large digital health implementations across Ontario. She is also the Chief Medical Information and Innovation Officer at Grand River and St. Mary’s General Hospitals, where she leads multiple digital health projects to serve the community.
Stewart Gray
Stewart Gray is a Halifax-based, Canadian senior and former digital health leader who is passionate about the use of AI to improve healthcare. Since OpenAI's ChatGPT announcement in November 2022, he has used LLMs on his personal healthcare journey as tools to complement the care provided by his dedicated, but over-taxed, health care professionals. Over the past 12 months, he has shared his AI story with the International Congress of Academic Medicine in Halifax (co-presenting the AI keynote with Dr. M. Mamdani) and the Canada Health Infoway Partnership Conference in Quebec City.
9:00 — 9:15
Zayna Khayat
Zayna Khayat, PhD, is the Chief Program Officer at AMS Healthcare, where she leads the strategic design and delivery of the organization’s flagship programs in Artificial Intelligence & Compassion and the History of Healthcare.
She is adjunct faculty in the Health Sector Strategy stream at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and serves as the in-house health futurist with Deloitte Canada’s Healthcare practice. Zayna previously held senior roles as Future Strategist at SE Health, Lead of Health System Innovation at MaRS Discovery District, and was seconded to the REshape Innovation Centre at Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Earlier in her career, she was a Principal in the healthcare practice of The Boston Consulting Group.
Zayna earned her PhD in diabetes research from the University of Toronto. A recognized voice on health system transformation, she advises health technology companies across Canada and internationally.
9:15 — 10:15
Moderator: Andrew Bond
In 2023-24, Andrew Bond was one of the inaugural National Health Fellows at McMaster University and contributed to the Royal Society of Canada COVID policy group, focusing on interventions for unhoused communities. He also served on Ontario Health’s Expert Panel of Virtual Care, helping to develop guidelines for virtual primary care practice in Ontario. As a national leader in health systems innovation, Andrew Bond is dedicated to creating tech-enabled integrated health and social care models to improve population health equity, efficiency, and impact.
Tjaša Zajc
Her profound technical understanding of healthcare technology, gained through hands-on experience in healthcare IT development at Better, shines through in her talks, interviews, and articles.
Shafi Ahmed
Professor Shafi Ahmed is a multi-award winning cancer surgeon, teacher, futurist, innovator, entrepreneur and humanitarian. He believes that education is a fundamental human right and has spent his career using exponential technologies to teach millions of students across the world which led to him being dubbed as the worlds most watched surgeon.
He has worked for over 20 years as a Consultant Surgeon at The Royal London Hospital caring for patients in one of the most deprived areas of the UK.
His passion and work in democratising cancer care and global surgical education led to the nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. As an academic he holds a number of professorships and honorary doctorates and has been faculty at universities including Singularity University, Harvard Medical School, and Barts Medical School. He is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, an Honorary Professor of Practice at the new UCL Global Business School for Health and also teaches on the MBA programme at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Compassionate Policy
10:15 — 10:45
Artur Olesch
Artur Olesch is a Berlin-based journalist specializing in digital health, the founder of aboutDigitalHealth.com, and the editor-in-chief of ICT&Health International.
His collaborations span over 50 global healthcare institutions, including the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, the World Bank, and EIT Health. As the founder of Health Algorithmics, a digital health consultancy, Artur helps organizations navigate digital transformation and the integration of AI in healthcare.
10:45 — 11:15 Break
11:15 — 12:15
Commentator: Lisa Richardson
Lisa Richardson is the Associate Dean, Inclusion & Diversity at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. She is a clinician educator in U of T’s Division of General Internal Medicine and practices at the University Health Network where she is also an Education Researcher at the Wilson Centre. She currently holds the role of Indigenous Health Strategy Lead for Women’s College Hospital, where she founded the Centre for Wise Practices, and co-leads a new portfolio for the Department of Medicine called Person-Centred Care Education.
Lisa is a strong advocate for Indigenous health equity and Indigenous health education at the local, national and international level. Lisa is a 2014 – 2016 AMS Phoenix Fellow for her work related to the creation and integration of cultural safety teaching into the medical school curriculum. She co-authored the chapter Care in the Real World: Partial Perspectives on Compassion, Technology and Equity in the 2020 AMS Healthcare Book titled “Without Compassion, There Is No Healthcare”. Lisa remains a valued contributor to the AMS Healthcare Community.
Jennifer Gibson
Jennifer Gibson is the Sun Life Financial Chair in Bioethics and the Director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics (JCB), an Associate Professor in the Division of Clinical Public Health and the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. Jennifer holds a PhD in Philosophy (bioethics and political theory) with a prior academic background in the biological sciences. Jennifer is a health policy ethics scholar whose research, teaching and policy work focuses on ethical issues in contemporary health institutions and systems, particularly the role and interaction of values in governance and management decision-making. Jennifer has advised governments and policymakers on diverse policy issues such as medical assistance in dying, public health emergencies, health technology assessment, drug funding and supply, and resource allocation.
In 2015 and 2018-19, Jennifer co-chaired 2 expert panels on medical assistance in dying commissioned by federal, provincial, and territorial governments. During the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-22), she co-chaired the Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table, was a member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Table and served as bioethics advisor to several planning tables of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Ontario Health. In 2018, Jennifer founded the JCB’s Ethics and AI for Good Health Program, which focuses on and engages ethics and governance issues associated with AI in healthcare and public, and created the AMS-Fitzgerald Fellowship in AI and Human-Centred Leadership, a professional leadership program for early and mid-career health leaders. Jennifer has been a member of the WHO Expert Group on Ethics and Governance of AI for Health since 2020 and recently completed a three-year ministerial appointment as Vice-Chair of the Ontario Health Data Council.
Stewart Gray
Venkat Bhat
Dr. Venkat Bhat, MD, MSc, FRCPC, DABPN, is a staff psychiatrist and clinician-scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital (Unity Health Toronto) and Toronto Western Hospital (University Health Network). He is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Director of the Interventional Psychiatry Program at St. Michael’s Hospital, and the lead of the AI/Analytics pillar within the Institute of Biomedical Science, Engineering, and Technology. In his dual roles, he integrates clinical care with technological innovation, employing a 4P (Preventive, Predictive, Personalized, Participatory) Medicine approach. His research focuses on developing innovative solutions for mental health through interdisciplinary collaboration.
Will Falk
Will Falk has spent over 25 years as an international strategist, advising top academic centres, governments, and innovative companies in healthcare. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a Senior Fellow at the CD Howe Institute.
Will is interested in the impacts of technological change on health systems and their governance and payment mechanisms. He works with several innovative enterprises on digital health and software development including as an Innovation Fellow at Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care. He has been a Board Director or Advisor for more than a dozen enterprises including local and national charities, start-ups, health systems, and publicly listed companies.
Will’s strong understanding of digital health and his desire to improve healthcare through policy and digital innovation makes him important to AMS as we focus on a system that is fueled by advancing technology while remaining rooted in compassion.
12:15 — 13:15 Lunch
Getting Foundations in Place
13:15 — 13:55
Moderator: Kumanan Wilson
Innovation and Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. He is the Interim CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of the Bruyère Research Institute and Vice President, Research & Academic Affairs,
Bruyère Continuing Care.Dr. Wilson co-founded the digital immunization company CANImmunize Inc where he currently serves as its Chief Scientific Officer.Working alongside leading scientists and clinicians, Dr. Wilson's team has developed leading digital immunization software, a digital comic to teach children about immunization, a stroke-rehabilitation
platform, and a mobile tool for Emergency Department clinicians. His academic work also extends to big data and he is a member of the University of Ottawa Center for Health, Law, Policy and Ethics.
Kumanan's innovative digital work has been recognized around the world and is changing the way we deliver care. He is a great addition to the incredible network of health leaders that AMS is aligned
with.
Amol Verma
he holds the Temerty Professorship in AI Research and Education in Medicine.Amol is a health services researcher who co-founded and co-leads GEMINI, Canada's largest hospital clinical data research network. His work focuses on using electronic clinical data to improve hospital
performance and patient care. He serves as the Provincial Clinical Lead for Quality Improvement in General Internal Medicine at Ontario Health and is Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine,
Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.
Amol also chairs the Researcher Council and serves on the Board of Directors of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. At AMS Healthcare, his expertise in data-driven health system innovation brings a
critical perspective to our mission of advancing compassionate, technology-enabled healthcare.
Andrew Greenshaw
Canada, Andrew is a Fellow of CCNP and CINP, serving as CCNP President (2000–2002). He was Associate Vice President (Research) at the University of Alberta (2004–2011) and contributed to Canadian Institute for
Health Research (CIHR) neuroscience and mental health initiatives.Andrew chairs CIHR's Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Committee and is part of the CIHR NEIHR indigenous mental health network.
Andrew is the Scientific Director of the APEC Digital Hub for Mental Health and the Chair of the Board for Mental Health Research Canada. Co-founder of the University of Alberta computational psychiatry group,
Andrew is a Global Leadership Council member for the e-Mental Health International Collaborative (eMHIC) with a research focus in neuroscience, AI, and e-mental health.
Andrea Bielecki
As a Senior Advisor in Healthcare & Life Sciences at Cohere, Andrea collaborates with some of the world’s most forward-thinking global life science companies to help them unlock AI’s potential— redefining business and operating models and transforming customer and patient experiences.
Andrea’s specialties include Digital transformation, enterprise AI, medical affairs, omnichannel strategy, extended reality, innovative field tools, customer experience, measuring impact and building great teams.
13:55 — 14:35
Moderator: Helen Angus
lead complex organizations and inspire others to drive systems-level change. From 2018 – 2021 she was Deputy Minister in the Ontario Ministry of Health, where she helmed Ontario's initial health response to
the COVID-19 pandemic. She played a critical leadership role in the groundbreaking work of Cancer Care Ontario and as co-chair of the Council of Deputy Ministers of Health. Helen is currently a distinguished
fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Dov Klein
working with governments, agencies, and health systems on health care strategy, value-based funding, operations, performance management and supply chain. Previously, Dov served as the Vice President,
Value-Based Care in the Population Health and Value-Based Health Systems portfolio at Ontario Health and as the Ontario Hospital Association's program leader for financial management and budgeting.
Dov is academically affiliated with the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and completed the value measurement for health care program at Harvard Business
School.
Michael Hillmer
information policy, and privacy policy.
His division is responsible for maintaining trusted, high-quality health data and generating actionable insights that improve the health care system. The information management and strategy portfolio
establishes strategies that drive responsible use of health data for the public good.
Dr. Hillmer is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. He's received degrees from Carleton University and the University of Toronto.
14:35 — 15:15
Moderator: Rina Lamba
York Region Public Health. Passionate about innovation to improve access and affordability, her perspectives have been shared through published opinion pieces. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from
the University of Toronto and an MBA with a Graduate Diploma in Health Industry Management from the Schulich School of Business. Rina is an AMS–Fitzgerald Fellow in AI & Human-Centred Leadership (September
2024–May 2026). In 2025, she received the King Charles III Coronation Medal for mentoring youth from equity-deserving communities in the Greater Toronto Area.
Payal Agarwal
technology can enable innovative, person-centered care models, including the evaluation of large digital health implementations across Ontario. She is also the Chief Medical Information and Innovation Officer
at Grand River and St. Mary's General Hospitals, where she leads multiple digital health projects to serve the community.
Mahshid Yassaei
strengthening how clinical data is captured, structured, and integrated at its source. The platform transforms real-world clinical conversations into high-quality, structured data that integrates securely
within existing EMRs, supporting better clinical, operational, and system-level outcomes.
Prior to Tali, Mahshid co-founded Evenset, a healthcare and medical software development company that partnered with entrepreneurs, scaling startups, large enterprises, and public sector organizations to bring
complex digital health products to life. Evenset's clients included companies such as Medessist and Essity, as well as Canadian public health organizations including the Public Health Agency of Canada and
ICES.
Mahshid holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering and a Master's degree in Computer Science from McGill University.
Samuel Gareau-Lajoie
Passionate about technological innovation, he explores digital tools that optimize medical practice to free up time for healthcare professionals.
Committed to advocating for primary care, he regularly speaks out on issues facing family medicine, the workload of healthcare professionals, health policy decisions, and the challenges of the Quebec
healthcare system. He advocates for stronger collaboration between clinicians and policymakers to improve access to and the quality of care.
Convinced that the future of medicine lies in a balance between humanity and technology, he shares his reflections on medical practice, innovation, and the mental health of healthcare professionals, drawing on
the realities of their daily work.
15:15 — 15:45 Break
Building Capacity for the Long Term
15:45 — 16:15
Moderator: David Wiljer
David has also been a leader in patient education, lifelong learning, and health professions leadership, helping accelerate the adoption of digital innovations, big data, and new technologies, including artificial intelligence. His work continues to shape how healthcare organizations reimagine care delivery in a rapidly changing digital landscape.
Ken Porter
Stewart Gray
16:15 — 16:55
Moderator: Laura Desveaux
Paula Rowland
Samir Grover
Pedro Velmovitsky
16:55 — 17:00
Tim Rutledge
Tim previously served as President and CEO of North York General Hospital and most recently as the inaugural President and CEO of Unity Health Toronto, where he led the integration of three organizations into one of Canada’s largest academic health sciences networks. Under his leadership, Unity Health launched its first strategic plan, strengthened its research enterprise, advanced digital innovation, and successfully navigated the COVID-19 pandemic.
An Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, Tim has received multiple honours for excellence in medical education, including the W. T. Aikins Award. In his role at AMS Healthcare, he will help shape programs, strengthen its leadership community, and support its mission to advance compassion and innovation in Canadian healthcare.
17:00 — 17:15
Helen Angus
Stewart Gray
Payal Agarwal
17:15 — 18:30
Networking Reception
