CSHC-N100 - Introduction to the Landscape of Health Design in Canada

Course Description

^{Photograph by Sophia Adams}

This introductory health design course provides a survey of the Canadian healthcare sector and the role of design within it. Students will gain a basic understanding of the scales and contexts of Canadian health and healthcare, as well as concepts of design-based approaches and methods for problem-solving. This course will be composed of short lectures, engaging activities, and leading guest speakers in the field of Canadian health design. Lecture content and activities will further dig into contemporary health issues, their contexts, and examples of design-based approaches to provide an understanding of the complexity, yet plausibility, of using design to positively impact health and healthcare.  

Learning Objectives: 

• Evaluate contemporary health challenges (both in Canadian and global health) and eco-social determinants of health, 
• Evaluate the basics of the Canadian health system,  
• Apply the basics of systems, service, and policy design approaches to health and healthcare challenges,
• Engage in group discussions to critically analyze and understand the role of design-based approaches in health and healthcare. 

Synchronous Online Meeting Times:

• Oct 2, 6:00 - 8:00 PM: Introductory class 
• Oct 9, 6:00 - 8:00 PM: Guest speaker, Jennifer Zelmer 
• Oct 16, 6:00 - 8:00 PM: Guest speaker, Zahra Ebrahim  
• Oct 23, 6:00 - 8:00 PM: Guest speaker, Sophia Ikura 

Jennifer Zelmer

Dr. Jennifer Zelmer is the inaugural President and CEO of Healthcare Excellence Canada, the new organization formed in 2020 through the amalgamation of the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement and Canadian Patient Safety Institute to achieve safer, higher quality and more coordinated patient-partnered healthcare. Jennifer's long-standing commitment to improving healthcare quality and safety, as well as expertise in spreading and scaling innovations that deliver better outcomes, will help to create this new organization with an expanded capacity to improve healthcare for everyone in Canada. Jennifer previously joined CFHI as its President and CEO in September 2018. She has been a C.D. Howe Research Fellow for several years and is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Victoria, as well as a member of several health-related advisory committees and boards.

Previously, as President of Azimuth Health Group, Dr. Zelmer was a strategic advisor to leaders who sought to advance health and healthcare at local, national, and international levels. Before that, she held senior leadership positions with Canada Health Infoway, the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization, and the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Jennifer served on the first (2004) Safer Healthcare Now! National Steering Committee convened by CPSI when she was at CIHI. She also served on CPSI's former Health System Innovation Advisory Committee, and more recently, Jennifer served on the National Patient Safety Consortium Steering Committee during her time at Infoway.

Dr. Zelmer received her PhD and MA in economics from McMaster University and her B.Sc. in health information science from the University of Victoria.

Zahra Ebrahim

Zahra is a public interest designer and strategist, focused on shifting power to people who are typically underrepresented in institutions and systems. Her work has focused on deep, community-led approaches to policy, infrastructure, and service design. Prior to this role, she built and led Doblin Canada (Deloitte’s Human-Centred Design practice), focusing on engaging diverse sets of stakeholders to use human-centred design to address complex organizational and industry challenges. In her early career, Zahra led one of Canada’s first social design studios, working with communities to co-design towards better social outcomes and leading some of Canada’s most ambitious participatory infrastructure and policy programs. Zahra has taught at OCADU, MoMA, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto. She is the Vice-Chair of the Canadian Urban Institute, and the Board Chair for Park People.
 

Sophia Ikura

Sophia Ikura, Founder & Executive Director, Health Commons Solutions Lab

Sophia is the founder and Executive Director of Health Commons, a pioneering organization dedicated to addressing health disparities by combining the tools of a diverse set of disciplines from epidemiology to service design and political science  to bring community-driven solutions into the health policy space.

With a robust background in senior executive roles within government, Crown Agencies, and politics, Sophia brings a wealth of experience to her leadership.

As the Senior Director of Strategy and Community Engagement for the Toronto Regional Health Authority (formerly the Local Health Integration Network), Sophia was instrumental in engaging health system leaders and diverse communities across a population of 1.2 million and a budget of $4.4B in healthcare investments. Her efforts informed strategic health system planning, bringing population health management approaches to help address equity gaps across the diverse communities of Toronto.

Sophia's experience includes serving as a senior advisor to the Premier of Ontario and three Health Ministers over a five-year period. In these roles, she advised on critical matters such as health system funding reform, the provincial quality agenda, health human resources, public health, wait times management, home and community care, and hospital administration.

Prior to these roles, Sophia was the Director of the Nursing Secretariat, where she developed and implemented a four-year nursing human resource plan. This initiative guided $180 million in recruitment and retention activities, resulting in the creation of over 12,000 nursing positions across the health sector.

Sophia holds a Master of Public Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Queen's University. Her academic background, combined with her extensive professional experience, equips her with a unique perspective on health system challenges and solutions.

Through Health Commons, Sophia is committed to amplifying community expertise and the wisdom that comes from lived experiences to develop practical, hyper-local solutions for equitable health outcomes. The lab integrates service design, community engagement, co-design, and policy expertise to create impactful health interventions.