Speakers A-C

Mary Lou Ackerman
Vice President Innovation, SE Health
Dementia, A Complex Problem Requiring Comprehensive Solutions
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Presentation 1: 3:15 pm – 3:35 pm

Kyla Alsbury
PhD Student
Innovative Models for Long-Term Care – Helping Owners and Operators Decide
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Presentation 1: 11:00 am – 11:20 am

Dr. Majd Alwan
Senior Vice President of Technology and Executive Director of the LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST)
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
Dr. Alwan is responsible for creating and leading a network of technology companies, providers and research institutions focused on technology solutions for an aging society.
The network advances the interests of older consumers, caregivers and providers and fosters opportunities for collaboration between provider organizations, technology companies, and research institutions in exploring product development, testing prototypes, evaluating technology and deploying technology-enabled care models.
Prior to joining CAST, Majd served as an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Robotics and Eldercare Technologies Program at the University of Virginia’s Medical Automation Research Center. His research interests there included passive functional and health assessment, biomedical instrumentation, medical automation, as well as eldercare and assistive technologies.
As a volunteer, Dr. Alwan chaired the Funding Aging Services Technologies committee and the Pilots committee for CAST. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE’s Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and Robotics and Automation Societies, and a member of IEEE-USA’s Medical Technology Policy Committee and the Geriatric Care Workgroup. Alwan also serves on the Alzheimer’s Association’s Work Group on Technology.
Dr. Alwan received his Ph.D. in intelligent robotics from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, a Master’s of Science degree in control engineering with distinction from Bradford University, and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Damascus University.

Ana Paula Anjos
Manager of Quality, Kensington Health
Poster #6 – Building a Culture of Quality – Quality Day at Kensington Health
Thursday, September 19, 2019
12:45 pm – 1:00 pm

Barbara (Barb) Antone
Activities Manager, Tsi’ Nu Yoyantle Na’ Tuhuwatisni / Oneida Long Term Care Home
Oral Session 16 – SERVING DIVERSE POPULATIONS
Supporting the Health and Well-Being of Indigenous Residents in Long-Term Care
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Presentation 3: 3:55 pm – 4:15 pm

Stephanie Arcadia
Research Project Manager, Integrace Institute
Effects of Personally Meaningful Music on Mood and Behavior in Individuals with Dementia
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Presentation 2: 11:20 am – 11:40 am

Dr. Chantal Backman
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, at the University of Ottawa; Affiliate Investigator, Clinical Epidemiology Program of The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; Affiliate Investigator in the Care of the Elderly program at the Bruyère Research Institute
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Dr. Backman is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, at the University of Ottawa, an Affiliate Investigator in the Clinical Epidemiology Program of The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and an Affiliate Investigator in the Care of the Elderly program at the Bruyère Research Institute.
Her research program is focused on improving the quality, safety, and experience of older adults as they navigate through the healthcare system. Her research program covers topics related to frail older adults in acute care, geriatric rehabilitation and long-term care settings. The specific areas of foci include: 1) quality and safety interventions for older adults; 2) safe person- and family-centered care transitions between settings; and 3) sense-sensitive practices for residents living in long-term care communities.

Mel Barsky
Director, Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI)
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Prior to CABHI, Mel was Co-Founder, President & COO of INTERVENT Canada. INTERVENT has served over 2.5 million patients globally; over 200 corporations; and has been published in more than 100 peer reviewed major medical journals demonstrating the efficacy of its programs and improvement in health outcomes.
Previously, Mel was a Founding Partner and Executive Director of Scotiabank Private Equity Investments, where, he invested private and public ventures, primarily in financial services and information technology sectors.
Mel was also Director of Business Development & Sales Strategy for corporate card and travel products at American Express.
In his spare time, Mel enjoys playing basketball, guitar and travelling with his wife, 5 kids and Australian Labradoodle.

Kelly Batson
Manager, Resident Care, Education & Operations, Trillium Villa Nursing Home, Steeves & Rozema Group
Cannabis Use as an Alternative for Opioids, Antipsychotics and Antidepressants in Long Term Care
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Presentation 2: 3:35 pm – 3:55 pm

Chris Beekman
Director, Corporate Development, PointClickCare
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
Juan Manuel Rodriguez Bernabeu
MD, Residencia Los Robles Gerhoteles Madrid
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Susan Blackbourn
Director Quality and Safety Residential Aged Care, Mercy Health, Australia
Poster #1 – Mercy Health’s Residential Aged Care Quality System Framework
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
12:30 pm – 12:45 pm

Dr. Veronique Boscart
Executive dean, School of Health & Life Sciences, CIHR/Schlegel Industrial Research Chair for Colleges in Seniors Care; Director, Schlegel Centre for Advancing Seniors Care at Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
8:00 am – 5:30 pm

Ryanna Bowling
Program Lead, Health Workforce Information Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI)
ORAL SESSION 7 – OPTIMIZING THE HEALTH WORKFORCE
Taking a closer look at pan-Canadian health workforce trends in long-term care
Wednesday September 18, 1019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Presentation 3: 2:40 pm – 3:00 pm
Diane Boyer
Project Lead OPUS-AP, CIUSSS Estrie-CHUS
Accelerating the Spread and Scale of Innovations in Health in Diverse Contexts: Appropriate Use of Antipsyschotics in Long-Term Care
Thursday, September 19, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Presentation 1: 2:00 pm – 2:20 pm

Matthew Braun
Regional Manager of Education & Resident Services, Revera Long Term Care
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Dr. Judy Brown
Faculty Leader, Leading Age’s Leadership Academy
Monday, September 16, 2019
8:30 am – 4:30 pm
and
Tuesday, September 17,2019
8:30 am – 4:30 pm
Her books include A Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice, four collections of her poetry, The Sea Accepts All Rivers, Simple Gifts, Steppingstones, No One Swims alone. Her most recent leadership book is The Art and Spirit of Leadership.
Dr. Brown has taught leadership at the University of Maryland, served as a White House Fellow, and has worked in a range of sectors including manufacturing, arts, aging services, and the intelligence community. She has a passion for practices that simultaneously connect us with the world of ideas and the world of practice.
A native of a small fishing village in northern Michigan, her heritage is that of agriculture and cooperative extension, which has given her a commitment to the practical use of ideas, frameworks, rich language and reflection as a way to transform our lives and our work. She lives in the USA, on a tidal creek off the Chesapeake Bay. She can be reached at: www.judysorumbrown.com or judybrown@aol.com

Susan Brown
Director of Research Coordination and Research-Practice Integration, Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm

Andrea Burns
Director of the Age-Friendly Boston initiative, City of Boston
Age Friendly, Accessible Cities and Towns: Improving Our Lives While Increasing Senior Living Development Opportunities
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Presentation 2: 3:35 pm – 3:55 pm
Prior to her work at the City of Boston, Andrea worked as an independent journalist and photographer.
Elected as an at-large city councilor in Easthampton, MA in 2009, Andrea worked to enhance quality of life for residents, supporting affordable housing, business development for the agricultural sector, and city planning that embraced the “complete streets” principles.

Karen Campbell
Principal Investigator, Western University
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Joe Carella
Executive Director, Scandinavian Living Center
Creating Unlimited Options For Aging: The Impact of Community-Centered Living
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Presentation 1: 3:15 pm – 3:35 pm
Joe has an MBA from Babson College and an undergraduate degree from Northeastern University.

Elena Ceban
Supported Living Manager, Lasell Village
Living and Learning with Dementia
Thursday, September 19, 2019
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Presentation 3: 2:40 pm – 3:00 pm

Paula Chidwick
Director Research & Corporate Ethics, William Osler Health System
Sexual Activity & Ethics in Long-Term Care: When Is it Your Business?
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Presentation 2: 2:20 pm – 2:40 pm

Im Ja Choi
Founder & CEO, Penn Asian Senior Services (PASSi)
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
Workshop 20 – Innovative Solutions to Serving a Culturally Diverse Aging Population: Penn Asian Senior Services’ Excellence in Ageing Services Model
Thursday, September 19, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Shurjeel Choudhri
Senior Vice President and Head, Medical and Scientific Affairs, Bayer Inc.
Bayer Presentation
Thursday, September 19
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Presentation 3: 2:40 pm – 3:00 pm
Prior to joining Bayer, Dr. Choudhri was an assistant professor in the Departments of Medical Microbiology and Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He was also the director of the AIDS program at the St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg; and the Manitoba satellite director for the Canadian HIV Clinical Trials Network.
Dr. Choudhri obtained his MD and did his specialty training in internal medicine and sub-specialty training in infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. Following completion of his training, he completed a senior research fellowship in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1996, he was awarded the Young Investigator Award by the Canadian Association of HIV Researchers. Dr. Choudhri has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific abstracts and has contributed to over 40 peer-reviewed publications. He played an active role in the creation of the Canadian Clinical Trials Asset Map. Dr. Choudhri is currently the chair of the Canadian Clinical Trials Coordinating Centre executive committee, a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH) institutional advisory board, and a member of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada (CANet) board. He is a passionate advocate for mobile and digital Health and is also member of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) Mobile Health Advisory Board.

Rhonda Collins
Chief Medical Officer, Revera Inc.
Chief Medical Officer: A Novel Model of Service Toward Clinical Excellence
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Presentation 2: 3:35 pm – 3:55 pm
Family physician with a Certificate of Added competence in Care of the Elderly.
Clinical Consultant for Senior’s Mental Health Outreach.
Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University.
Member of the Ontario Retirement Communities Association Dementia Task Force.
Member of the Health Quality Ontario Quality Improvement Committee.

David Conn
VP Education, Baycrest Health Sciences
POSTER #1 – Project ECHO Care of the Elderly-Long-Term Care
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
12:30 pm – 12:45 pm

Stephen Cornelissen
Group Chief Executive Officer, Mercy Health
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
Panel – That’s Debatable – Challenges for Aged Care Providers of the Future
Thursday, September 19, 2019
10:30 am – 12:00 pm

Dr. Andrew Costa
Assistant Professor and Schlegel Chair in Clinical Epidemiology, McMaster University
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Innovator’s Den
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Dr. Costa is an Assistant Professor and Schlegel Research Chair in Clinical Epidemiology & Aging in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Department of Medicine at McMaster University. He also serves as the Research Director at the DeGroote School of Medicine, Waterloo Regional Campus. He is an interRAI Fellow, Associate Scientific Director of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, and Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). His program of research makes use of health information (‘big data’) to target, develop, and evaluate models of care in home and community care, emergency departments, and long-term care.
Main Affiliations:
- Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact
(formerly “Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics”), McMaster University; - Department of Medicine, McMaster University
Main Titles/Positions:
- Assistant Professor & Schlegel Chair in Clinical Epidemiology and Aging (2014-)
- Research Director, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, Waterloo Regional Campus (2017-)
Research & Educational Interests: Geriatrics/care of older adults; health care design, delivery, & analysis (models of care); health measurement; prognostic modeling, diagnostic algorithms and decision support; chronic disease management; large cohort studies; pragmatic trial methods
Current Projects (as PI, co-PI):
- DIVERT-CARE TRIAL (Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT03012256), largest Canadian pragmatic cluster randomized trial in home care. Funded by: CIHR.
- The Physician Quality Score in Long-term Care. Developing and validating process-based quality measures for medical practice in nursing homes across North America. Collaborating with Baycrest, Rand Health (USA), UCLA, and Florida State University. Funder: CCABHI.
- Health Data Library, a data portal for census-level personal health information and high-end analytics (machine learning, etc.). Includes extensive personal health information from the HNHB LHIN and Schlegel Villages. Funded by: CIHR, HNHB LHIN, and Schlegel Villages.
- ICES McMaster, various projects using census-level Ontario data, including:
- Creating the first Census-level Retirement Home Cohort in Ontario
- Influence of Nursing Home Resident Characteristics, Staffing, Medications, and Physician Models of Care on Hospital Transfers in Ontario
- Influence of primary care model on urgent and emergent health service use among home care client
- Funded by: ON MOHLTC (HSRF), CIHR.
- Common Assessments for Repeated Paramedic Service Encounters (CARPE), large prospective cohort study of community paramedicine patients in Ontario. Funded by: MITACS.
- Community Paramedicine Secretariat of Ontario. Collaboration with Mount Sinai Hospital to house the Secretariat and its functions. Funded by: All Ontario LHINs.
- ACT ON Chronic Disease, development and deployment of a multi-platform informal caregiver education program in home care. Funded by: ON MOHLTC.
- McMaster Passport for Ageing / Geriatric Education “MacPAGE” (https://macpage.mcmaster.ca, a scalable education program to introduce medical students to the care of older adults though experiential learning and skills development.
- McMaster Evidence-based Medicine Case Report Journal (https://ebmcr.mcmaster.ca/), features real clinical cases to show how evidence-based medicine should be practiced.
Key Recent Publications:
- Schumacher C, Lackey C, Haughton D, Peirce T, Boscart VM, Davey M, Harkness K, Heckman GA, Junek M, McKelvie R, Mitchell L, Sinha SK, Costa AP. A Chronic Disease Management Intervention for Home Care Patients with Cardio-Respiratory Symptoms: The DIVERT-CARE Intervention. Canadian Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing (CJCN), 2018, 28(3): 18-26.
- Jones, A.^; Schumacher C.; Bronskill S.; Campitelli M.; Poss J.; Seow H.; Costa A.P. The association between home care services and same-day emergency department utilization: a case-crossover study. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2018 Apr 30; 190(17): E525–E531
- Costa, A.P. Charting age-associated cognitive decline. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2017, 189(48):E1470-1471.
- Brousseau, A.^; Dent, E.; Hubbard, R.; Melady, D.; Emond, M.; Mercier, E.; Costa, A.P. Identification of older adults with frailty in the Emergency Department using a Frailty Index: Results from a Multinational Study. Age and Ageing, 2017, Nov 20:1-7.
Team (grant funding): 1 FTE Post-doc, 4 FTE research staff, 5 PhD Students, 4 MSc Students, 3 part-time research support staff
Recent Awards & Honours:
- 2018 Mentorship & Supervision Excellence Award (Full Time/Joint Faculty), Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, & Impact; McMaster University
- 2018 Regional Assistant Dean’s Award of Excellence in Medical Education, McMaster M.G. DeGroote Waterloo Regional Campus
Website (research): https://bdg.mcmaster.ca/
Website (education): https://wrcresearch.mcmaster.ca/
Twitter: @andrew_p_costa
Google Scholar Link: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=61vetQ4AAAAJ&hl=en

Steven Crawford
Chief Executive Officer, McCormick Care Group
Engaging College Student to Improve Design for Human Centric Experience
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Presentation 2: 2:20 pm – 2:40 pm
Steven is currently a member of the South West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) Long-Term Care Homes Network Council and a member of the OLTCA’s Financial Liaison Committee.

Tammy Cumming
Manager, UW-Schlegel Research Institute for Aging
Engaging Tomorrow’s Long-Term Care Workforce Today
Thursday, September 19, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Presentation 2: 2:20 pm – 2:40 pm
Tanya Mac Donald
Senior Improvement Lead, Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement
Accelerating the Spread and Scale of Innovations in Health in Diverse Contexts: Appropriate use of Antipsyschotics in Long-Term Care
Thursday, September 19, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Presentation 1: 2:00 pm – 2:20 pm

Mohammad Mahoor
Associate Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Denver
Thursday, September 19, 2019
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Dr. Mohammad Mahoor graduated with a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Miami, with undergraduate and master’s degrees from Iran. Dr. Mahoor is co-founder and president of DreamFace Tech, LLC, an organization that is committed to fully develop the “Ryan CompanionBot”, helping people with dementia. Dr. Mahoor has had his work published in numerous scholarly publications and has been interviewed by multimedia organizations such as Forbes online.