HIMSS Eastern Canada Chapter Board of Directors
President:
Mireille Luc, PhD (HS), MBA (c), Senior Director of Healthcare Strategy, Petal Health
Mireille Luc is the Senior Director of Healthcare Strategy for Petal Health, accountable for the medical affairs in Canada, the US and Europe. In her role, Mireille is a key player in creating synergy within the Petal team and bringing innovative ideas to healthcare leaders and decision-makers who are calling for solutions to the complex healthcare environment.
Mireille holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Health Sciences. She has worked for almost 25 years in public and private healthcare and the academic sector. Before joining Petal, Mireille served as Deputy director of the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine for the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Sherbrooke. She led various projects with family and emergency physicians across Quebec and New Brunswick.
Past-President:
Bobby Gheorghiu, BBA, MHSc, CPHIMS-CA, Senior Director, Research and Analytics, Canada Health Infoway
Bobby's extensive career includes 20 years of analytical, consulting and management experience across the acute care, government, and policy sectors of the health care system. In his current role at Canada Health Infoway, Bobby combines his knowledge of health data with a deep understanding of the Canadian digital health landscape to innovate new ways of developing, measuring, and reporting performance and outcome indicators. By growing organizational data analytics capabilities, Bobby provides insights that stimulate adoption and demonstrate tangible benefits of investments in digital health. Bobby has a Bachelor in Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business, York University and a Master's Degree in Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation from the University of Toronto.
President-Elect:
Lindsay Bertrand, BSc, MHI, Chief Clinical Information Officer, Nova Scotia Health Authority
Lindsay is a proven healthcare leader who is passionate about improving health outcomes by leveraging innovative solutions, patient/provider experience, and delivering exemplary care to all Nova Scotians. She has been the Chief Clinical Information Officer for Nova Scotia Health/IWK Health since 2022. In this role, she has worked to advance technology-enabled practice and, as one member of a Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) triad, has worked on patient and clinician-centred readiness for OPOR.
This work has been informed by her background as a clinician. A Registered Respiratory Therapist and Certified Clinical Anesthesia Assistant by training, she spent 15 years in front-line, patient-facing care, both as a clinician and as a manager at IWK Health. Additionally, Lindsay holds a Master of Health Informatics from the University of Waterloo. She believes that Nova Scotia is poised to be a leader in digital health through a cohesive provincial strategy, pioneering novel workflows to meet population health needs.
Lindsay believes in servant leadership and is driven by building safety culture for patients and providers, breaking down silos, and health system transformation.
Treasurer:
Joy Ardanaz, MBA, MAPM, PMP, Digital Health Subject Matter Expert, CGI
Joy has a wide ranging and extensive career encompassing national not-for-profit association leadership, project management, and over 20 years’ leadership experience in the healthcare sector with expertise in digital health. She has led multiple initiatives at the Ottawa Heart Institute, including modernization of healthcare documentation practices, adoption and customization of an electronic medical record, and the transformation of remote patient monitoring technologies to deliver care to patients in the region as well as remote care for Indigenous/isolated communities. She later helped guide the Cardiology Division through the planning and adoption of the Epic Hospital Information System. In 2021, she was invited to join the Ottawa Hospital’s Epic Team as a certified analyst to help streamline workflows for Cardiology and Radiology users across 10 institutions.
In 2023, CGI invited Joy to join their team as a space health solution architect and digital health advisor to work on the Canadian Space Agency’s “Connected Care Medical Module,” designing and delivering a functional prototype of a smart modular medical facility for the lunar surface. As a digital health specialist and consultant, she plays a key role in CGI’s Canadian Health Sector.
Secretary:
Ben Goldberg, MBA, Partner and Global Industry Lead, Health and Life Sciences, CGI
Ben Goldberg is the Global Industry Lead for Health and Life Sciences at CGI, where he engages with teams around the world to help define, develop, and foster our role as technology partner for health and care organizations.
Ben has collaborated on global initiatives and works with internal and external stakeholders and business partners to bridge relationships and drive growth across sectors, including government, hospital, public laboratory, community care, and private industry. With over 20 years of experience in IT delivery and business development in both healthcare and the public sector, Ben has successfully led transformational programs and delivered solutions for a range of ministries and health organizations across Canada.
Ben’s mission is to showcase how CGI’s Health and Life Sciences teams excel in providing proven industry expertise, enabling our technology partners to improve patient outcomes through transformational IT.
Ben is a well-respected leader in the health technology community and holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey Business School.
** For Committees please click HERE.
2024-25 Board Members:
Jennifer Backler, RN, Director of Professional Practice and Clinical Informatics, Cambridge Memorial Hospital
Jennifer Backler is a Registered Nurse of 25 years who spent the first 10 years of her career working in the Emergency Department. Jen developed a passion for informatics in 2009, when she helped implement an Emergency Department Management system at her place of employment. Since that time Jen has sought out new digital transformation opportunities while also taking on progressive leadership roles as her experience grew.
In 2015, Jen joined St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) as a Clinical Informatics Specialist to work on the implementation of their Dovetale (Epic) HIS. In 2018, Jen was promoted to the Manager of Clinical Applications at SJHH. During this time, she delivered a post-live governance structure for further enhancements to the system and helped move SJHH to HIMSS EMRAM Level 7 status in 2021. In 2022, Jen joined Cambridge Memorial Hospital as the Director of Professional Practice and Clinical Informatics where she has the responsibility of leading the clinical portion of their upcoming digital transformation. In addition to being an RN, Jen is PROSCI Change Management certified, and holds a BSc and a post-graduate certificate in Health Informatics.
Helen Edwards, RN, BA, MN, Clinical Informatics Consultant
Helen worked at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), holding a variety of positions including bedside nursing, education, project management, clinical/informatics director and Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, retiring after 40 years. She describes the focus of her role as providing leadership and influencing clinical transformation through adoption and use of systems and their associated data.
Helen led procurement activities including identifying, evaluating, implementing and optimizing large-scale informatics and clinical technology solutions. Since retirement Helen works independently as a consultant, providing clinical informatics leadership and advice; and mentors many nurses and others interested in advancing their careers in clinical informatics. Helen is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto in the Master of Health Informatics Program, is a formal mentor in the HIMSS Emerging Leaders Forum program and just completed her second term as Communications Director on the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association (CNIA) Board.
Andriana Lukich, HBSc, MBA, Interim VP, Strategic Transformation, Quality, and Data, St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton
Andriana holds a HBSc Kinesiology and an MBA from McMaster University, a PMP certification and is Prosci Change Management certified. Throughout her decade of healthcare experience, she has held multiple roles all focused on leading change initiatives and supporting staff through transformational projects.
The digital projects she has championed include enabling virtual care between patients and providers; creating a city-wide patient self-scheduling tool to support booking of COVID-19 tests; and leading the implementation of bi-directional data exchange between long-term care homes and acute care hospitals. Andriana's commitment to digital transformation has attracted support and spurred innovation across Canada.
Joe Mayer, BHSc. (Health), MBA, PMP, CPHIMS-CA, Chief Revenue Officer at IDENTOS
Joe is a healthcare focused management professional with diverse consulting, business development and leadership experience. Joe has been fortunate enough to work with numerous domestic and international public and private health care organizations across the continuum of care. He has built, delivered and operated digital innovation for governments, NFPs, militaries, health systems and many other healthcare providers domestically and internationally.
Joe is currently Chief Revenue Officer at IDENTOS. He is responsible for global revenue generation and leading activities for the Healthcare market. In this role, Joe is demonstrating how respect for data privacy and security can be a positive transformation agent to drive adoption of digital health ecosystems.
In addition to his MBA, Joe has an Honors Health Science Degree from the University of Western Ontario and is PMP, ITIL and CPHIMS-CA certified. He has also completed ICD NFP Governance program at Rotman School of Management, Level 1-3 Innovation Governance Program from the Council of Canadian Innovators.
Andrew Nermirovksy, RN, BScN, MSc, CPHIMS-CA,Client Accountable Executive, Oracle Health
Andrew has worked in healthcare since 2006 starting as a bedside Emergency Department RN at London Health Sciences Centre. From there he held a number of roles in the clinical informatics space, leading the implementations of electronic health records across the country. Prior to his current role he worked as both the CIO and CNIO for Nova Scotia Health (NSH), helping to modernize the healthcare IT systems and navigating NSH through the COVID pandemic and supporting our clinicians and others as they embraced work from home and virtual care. Currently he is responsible for providing support and guidance to Oracle Health (formerly Cerner)'s clients on the East Coast.
Sonia Pagliaroli, MSc, Chief Nursing Officer, Oracle Health Canada
Sonia is the Chief Nursing Officer for Cerner Canada and joined Cerner in 2016. In this role of CNO, she has responsibility to engage with client clinical leaders in strategy development, provide clinical executive oversight on initiatives as well as advance and advocate for national clinical standards and requirements. Sonia is a registered nurse and clinical informatics professional (CPHIMS-CA) with frontline clinical experience and over 15 years of management and leadership expertise.
She has co-authored the Canadian CPOE toolkit Implementation Guide and contributed to the RNAO Best Practice Guideline entitled; Guideline for Healthcare Leaders and Clinicians to Optimize Implementation and Adoption of eHealth Solutions. Ms. Pagliaroli is also the Director of Membership for the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association as well as HIMSS Ontario Chapter and an active participant of the National Nursing Data Standards Symposium. She is a graduate of the Masters of Science in Health Informatics.
Bhavana Patel, CPHIMS-CA, Healthcare Strategy & Transformation Executive, Executive Coach & Mentor
Bhavana Patel is a healthcare executive with over 25 years of experience leading transformative change in the sector, both locally and globally. Her career is grounded in front-line clinical experience across the continuum of care. She has held strategic and change leadership positions at a variety of healthcare organizations, including The Hospital for Sick Children, Cancer Care Ontario, Health Quality Ontario, Canada Health Infoway, Accreditation Canada, and Think Research.
With a passion for leading from behind, Bhavana serves as an executive coach and strategic advisor, supporting CEOs and senior executives through their organizational and individual transformation journeys. Committed to giving back to the digital community, she provides leadership as a Board member and Strategy Chair with the HIMSS Eastern Chapter, where she launched the inaugural Emerging Digital Health Leaders Mentorship program. Additionally, she has mentored and served as a Faculty Member with Digital Health Canada, facilitating the development and growth of digital health leaders.
Justin Saindon, BSc, MSc, PMP, Director, Digital Transformation & Analytics, Niagara Health
Justin Saindon is a health system leader passionate about transforming healthcare delivery and patient experience through technology, data, and innovation. Justin is Director, Digital Transformation & Analytics at Niagara Health. In this capacity he is responsible for defining and executing on Niagara Health’s digital transformation and data analytics strategic priorities. Prior to Niagara Health, Justin held various leadership roles with Southlake Regional Health Centre, Central and Toronto Central Local Health Integration Networks, as well as University Health Network. The breadth and depth of his experience has provided Justin a comprehensive view of Ontario’s health system challenges as well as a firm understanding of the opportunities that exist in the digital health ecosystem.
Justin is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and a certified Change Management Practitioner. He holds an Honours Bachelor of Sciences degree from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Science degree from Western University. Justin is a Review Editor for Longwoods Healthcare Quarterly, serves on the Board of Directors for the HIMSS Eastern Canada Chapter, and serves on the Advisory Board for the Niagara Falls Innovation Hub.
Joanne Templeton, Managing Director, Accenture
Joanne is a partner and senior vice president with Gevity. She opened Gevity’s Ontario Branch in 2010, and is now responsible for Gevity Canada / East Division’s strategic direction and business development activities, as well as client and consultant management. With more than 30 years of information management and technology experience, Joanne is a leader in the digital health industry and provides senior consulting and advisory services on many Gevity engagements. She has been involved in the health care sector since 2000 where she was engaged to facilitate the business process redesign for a large public sector client amalgamating five organizations into one and looking for efficiencies and application of industry best practices.
Today Joanne is still passionate about health care, providing stakeholder engagement and facilitation services and oversight on many Gevity projects of all sizes across Canada. She has been involved in large provincial implementations but also enjoys the smaller projects that make a difference. Joanne was recognized by Digital Health Canada as one of 10 Women leaders in Digital Health for her leadership on the Nova Scotia Public Health Surveillance solution implementation. She is also a member of Technation, Digital Health Canada.