Alan J. Forster MD, FRCPC, MSc is the Executive Vice President, Chief Innovation and Quality Officer at the Ottawa Hospital, Canada’s largest Academic Health Sciences Center. His focus is enabling teams to create higher value health care – in which patient centered health outcomes are realized and health system costs are lowered.      

Over his career, he has led research on patient safety and quality improvement. He performed the seminal work evaluating the incidence of adverse events following discharge from hospital. He has also led the Ottawa Hospital’s data strategy which has been used to support research, operations, and planning.  Overall, his work has led to over 240 publications in peer review journals and innumerable advances in quality of care. 

In addition to his role at the Ottawa Hospital, Alan is a leader in the field of healthcare quality. He is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He provides ongoing advice to agencies at the local, national, and international levels, and he has served as associated editor for several prestigious peer-review journals.

"Camille is a cancer survivor. In 2020, at age 35, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Her treatment journey led her to participate in the first made-in-Canada CAR T Clinical Trial, led by Dr. Natasha Kekre, at The Ottawa Hospital, and funded in part by BioCanRx.

Camille underwent various standard treatments for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, but unfortunately without success. With all treatments exhausted, in March 2021 she applied for and met the criteria for the first made-in-Canada CAR T-cell therapy Clinical Trial. Today she is a 38-year-old mother of a teenage daughter and cancer-free thanks to this innovative treatment.

Camille enjoys spending time with her daughter Michela, family and friends. She is a strong advocate for the CAR T-cell therapy that saved her life and is currently involved in efforts to make sure it is available in Canada to others who face an uncertain future like she experienced."

Dr. Lamontagne holds a Master’s degree in pharmacology and another in health research methodology. He was recruited as a critical care specialist and clinician-scientist by the Université de Sherbrooke and the Centre de recherche du CHU de Sherbrooke in 2010. Dr. Lamontagne has received peer-reviewed funds from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Lotte & John Hecht Memorial Foundation. His research activities include clinical trials of resuscitation interventions (65 Trial - PMID 32049269, LOVIT Trial - PMID 35704292), and trustworthy clinical guidelines and health systems research. In 2020, he launched the Canadian Clinical Research Network to improve clinical research capacity and coordination across Canada by collecting and reporting information on the conduct of clinical research within the Canadian health research ecosystem.

Manoj Lalu is an Anesthesiologist and Scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, as well as an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa. He currently holds the University of Ottawa Junior Clinical Research Chair in Innovative Translational Research and the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society Career Scientist Award. His research is largely preclinical and translational, focusing on methods that could improve early clinical trials of novel therapies. One method that may improve this pathway is patient engagement in the research. His team regularly partners with patients to help plan and conduct studies in the lab and at the bedside.

Dr Stuart Nicholls is the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) lead at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute where he provides consultations and education regarding patient engagement in research as well as conducting research into the methods of patient engagement.  He is a member of the Canadian Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) Consortium (https://www.act-aec.ca/), with a focus on patient engagement and inclusion in clinical trials. He is a past member of the Canadian Clinical Trials Coordinating Centre (CCTCC) working group on accreditation for Research Ethics Boards reviewing clinical trials, a former member of the Health Canada/Public Health Agency of Canada Research Ethics Board and has been an expert participant in the development of Core Outcome Sets and reporting guidelines for clinical trials.

Linda is a semi-retired executive health care leader and former Chief Nurse Executive and ICU nurse who has worked locally, nationally, and internationally in healthcare over the last 35 years. Linda has worked clinically, in education, and administration, throughout the continuum of care in healthcare – from neonates to adults and with seniors. Linda is an expert in quality improvement and performance measurement and has worked extensively in the quality and patient safety fields in healthcare. Linda is also a patient and lives with spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and severe degenerative disc disease and has lived with chronic pain for over 15 years. Linda is a CIHR Patient Engagement Research Ambassador (PERA) for the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis with the Canadian Health Research Institutes (CIHR) and is a member of the Institute’s Advisory Board. She has co-developed online educational modules for patients and researchers about Patient Engagement in Research – available through CIHR-IMHA. Linda is a member of the Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance (CAPA) and is a member of the Fibromyalgia Association of Canada. Linda is an Essential Caregiver to her Mum, who lives with dementia, and is a volunteer who provides palliative and end-of-life care to residents in LTC. Linda states: “It is vital that the patient voice is respected, listened to, and incorporated into change in the delivery of health care services, including research. Patients are experts about their disease and the lived experience. They are becoming more informed and knowledgeable, and it is imperative that they are included in the development of plans of what is researched and help bring that to the clinical world.

Shaneel’s passion for health empowerment was born from his experience as a caregiver. Shaneel didn’t accept the information-chaos people experienced and found the power in democratizing health data and finding a global community.  He collated and shared actionable health data with the care team and a community of peers to improve decision making and ultimately, quality of life.   From his journey, Shaneel co-founded Zamplo with the goal to create a world where each and every person is connected to the data, resources, community and knowledge they need to live their best possible lives.

Shaneel has a B.Eng. in Computer Engineering, a M.A. in Political Economy. Shaneel is a speaker on the power of health data in your hands at healthcare conferences across Canada; a pilot and avid traveler. His experience taught him life continues to grow if you turn grief into gratitude.  Shaneel is happily married to Sara and they live in Calgary with their schnoodle Zoey. "