Latest News
- Category: Telferimpact
On May 13 2019, the Telfer School welcomed Helen Angus, Deputy Minister of Health and Long-term care for our CEO-In-Residence Lecture Series.
Helen Angus was appointed Deputy Minister of Health and Long-Term Care in June 2018, after having most recently served as the Deputy Minister of Treasury Board Secretariat and the Secretary of Treasury Board and Management Board of Cabinet.
During the CEO-In-Residence lecture series, Ms. Angus spoke to a class of MHA students about her career path and the lessons learned along the way. She also gave a presentation on “Health Transformation in Ontario”. It was especially timely as the government of Ontario rolls out its plans for Health Care reform. In her presentation, she focused on the challenges facing the ministry, and explained her vision for Connected Care. The aim is to offer better caregiver experience, patient and health outcomes, value and efficiency, and provider experience.
Ms. Angus’s long career in leading innovation and change, as well as her exceptional leadership skills and long history of experience in health planning and policy are all elements that contributed to the success of this event.
- Category: Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Have you been considering pursuing a Telfer MBA or MHA degree? The Telfer School of Management is holding an information session for each Masters program this month. If you would like to learn more about the programs, attend an upcoming session to interact with professors and ask one-on-one questions about the program.
What is the value of a Master’s Degree?
Both the MBA and MHA programs provide value through a personalized, hands-on, and connected learning experience. Each of the classes are small and engaging, which provides the opportunity to work closely with your peers, and learn from your professors in a multicultural environment. Our masters programs can enable you to build competencies, grow your career, and establish valuable, long-lasting connections, all while being located in the heart of the Canadian G7 capital.
Why take your MBA at the Telfer School of Management?
Internationally recognized Triple Crown Accreditation
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Access to top professors with valuable experience
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Industry connections
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Explore the management consulting project
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Participate in our internship program
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Receive a salary increase
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100% chance of employment within 9 months
Register: MBA Information Session on Thursday, November 29 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Why complete the MHA at the Telfer School of Management?
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Prepare you to make a difference in the healthcare industry
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Assume leadership positions in all areas of Canada’s dynamic, complex health system
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Choose from two flexible program deliveries with top professors
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Obtain real-world experience with a four-month exclusive residency
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Gain tactical management skills for your career
Register: MHA Information Session on Tuesday, November 27 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Determine if these Telfer programs are the right fit for you today.
- Category: Telfer Announcements
With an ever increasing population and an aging workforce, the complexity of our healthcare system becomes all the more apparent. Margins for hospitals are under increasing scrutiny, whereby the incentive to perform at a higher level, to improve efficiencies, and to provide better quality care for patients is of the utmost importance.
Fortunately, the creation of our option in Healthcare Analytics seeks to fill that need, understanding that healthcare systems are undergoing unprecedented transformation fuelled by the digitization of services and investments in health information technologies.
Launching in September 2018, our BCom option in Healthcare Analytics is a field built on the crucial role that data, systems engineering, management, and organizational innovation play in improving the quality and timeliness of service delivery in a high performing healthcare system. This field answers a need to develop expertise to create the research and training capabilities required for transforming healthcare into a system that adheres to the principles of patient-centered care and participatory medicine.
According to Jonathan Patrick, Associate Professor and Program Director of the School’s MSc in Health Systems, this program is the perfect opportunity for high school students to pursue their undergraduate program in business and to forge a path toward making a social impact. While the program focuses on subjects such as quantitative analysis and data management, it introduces the challenges of applying these to the human factor of the healthcare field: patients with will and mind.
With the integration of a 4th year honours project, where students must solve a healthcare systems issue using business analytics tools, graduates of this option are left with a competitive advantage. Career opportunities are boundless, whether with local healthcare integration networks (LHIN), accrediting bodies, hospital administration, or analytics consulting firms. Alternatively, students interested in research can pursue their MSc in Health Systems.
As one of the only institutions in Canada to offer this type of program at the undergraduate level, our option in Healthcare Analytics is a differentiator at the School and one we see growing exponentially over the next few years.
- Category: Latest News
Women have been making steady gains in the traditionally male-dominated health care field. They make up over 50% of medical school students across Canada and over 80% of the health care workforce. Yet gender disparities remain. Women lead fewer than 20% of hospitals, and hold relatively few leadership positions overall.
On June 12, efforts to shatter the glass ceiling and empower women leaders in the health care sector received a major thumbs up. The Canadian College of Health Leaders and the Canadian Health Leadership Network, working with University of Ottawa Telfer School of Management professors Ivy Lynn Bourgeault and Barbara Orser, the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvements and the Centre for Research and Education on Women and Work, received $400,000 to advance gender equality in health care, health sciences and indigenous health. The funding was awarded by Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef as part of the Canada 150 project grants.
The team’s project, Empowering Women Leaders in Health (eWoLIH), aims to transform the health care, health sciences and indigenous health system by increasing participation, visibility and advancement of women in leadership positions. “Our goal is to build a strong and supportive community of established and emerging women leaders, helping them transform the health care system by drawing on women’s unique leadership skills, experiences and contributions,” says Bourgeault, the project lead. “This network will support community outreach initiatives, build partnerships and work to bring down the systemic barriers that contribute to gender inequity in health care, health sciences and indigenous health.”
The project, which will begin in Ottawa, Toronto and London, will first identify the unique systemic barriers limiting women’s participation in leadership roles. Working with partners, the team will develop and put in practice a set of action tools and resources and promote measures to remove these barriers.
By the end of the project, the team plans to have implemented these activities and evaluated their effectiveness. “Women’s leadership in health sciences is critical to advance research on issues specific to women, encourage female scientists and generate new knowledge to improve health and health care. It will also help shape the next generation of health workers and the leaders of tomorrow,” adds Bourgeault.
- Category: Latest News
Ottawa stands poised to develop into an important player in healthcare innovation. And it can get closer to the goal by connecting the region’s clinical innovators to business acumen, and thereby drive better patient care.
That message was a key theme highlighted by Wojtek Michalowski, Vice-Dean of Research and professor of health informatics at the Telfer School of Management, in his presentation at the “I3” – Industry, Issues and Insights – lunchtime event at the Château Laurier on February 7.
Organized by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce and the Ottawa Business Journal with support from the Telfer School, the event featured a keynote presentation by Ontario chief health innovation strategist William Charnetski, who spoke about efforts by his office to champion the province as a leading centre for new and innovative health technology.
Professor Michalowski took the podium first, and commented that with its large talent pool in healthcare, abundant resources and strong high-tech ecosystem, Ottawa has strong potential to become a national leader in healthcare innovation, provided that other elements are also in place.
One of those elements, he said, is the need for an intrapraneurial mindset. “Innovation in healthcare is like a start-up that is being developed inside the organization or the system. Thus, people who lead it must have knowledge about intrapreneurship, or how to be an entrepreneur on the inside. This means knowing what are the forces that will drive innovation, what are the forces that will kill it, what kind of skills does it require, what are the best practices and processes to follow.”
Another important element, Michalowski said, is greater coordination among healthcare practitioners and health systems researchers. He gave as an example the Telfer Health Transformation Exchange (THTEX), a meeting point for dialogue and learning for healthcare innovators and management and engineering faculties.
“I really believe that Ottawa is in a unique position, with the right size in terms of human capital and scope and a really innovative and talented workforce. There is a lot of enthusiasm on the part of multiple players to innovate, but there is not always coordination, and our hope with the THTEX is to contribute to that coordination.”
An interview with Michalowski following the event was live streamed on the Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook page. You can watch the interview here: https://www.facebook.com/ottawachamberofcommerce/
- Category: Latest News
Professor Ivy Lynn Bourgeault of the Telfer School of Management, holder of the CIHR Chair in Gender, Work and Health Human Resources, has won the 2016-2017 Award for Excellence in Research from the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO).
Policy-relevant and impactful research
Her research fosters a better understanding of the sociology of health professions. Her work has a particular focus on the impact of gender on work and the types of tasks assigned to different health professionals. Related to this, she also examines the need to modernize healthcare “scopes of practice” to support new models of care.
She studies the mobility of healthcare workers and the issue of regional workforce planning. Her studies in this area provide insight into the migration of health professionals to and from different countries, including Canada.
She also established a strong reputation for her research on women's health services. Her studies have delved into the healthcare provided to women in rural and remote locations; regional differences in maternity care systems; and the role of midwifery in the provision of primary maternity care.
Professor Bourgeault is an internationally recognized leader and champion in these areas and particularly in health human resources. Her innovative studies put Canada at the forefront of this relatively new field that has developed rapidly in response to critical health workforce challenges.
Leadership in health policy research
Professor Bourgeault has had considerable success working at the research – policy – practice interface. She has been a consultant to various provincial Ministries of Health, Health Canada, the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization. She also brings exemplary leadership to influential communities of practice such as the Ontario Health Human Resource Research Network and the Pan Canadian Health Human Resources Network.
Professor Bourgeault is a sought-after mentor and educator. She has supervised a large number of graduate and postdoctoral students and also mentored a number of younger colleagues, demonstrating a strong commitment to creating the next generation of academic health policy and health systems leaders.
- Category: Telfer Announcements
Samia Chreim has been named the Ian Telfer Professor in Health Organization Studies. Her research provides new insights into the dynamics of organizational change, integration across organizations, and collaboration among professionals. Professor Chreim recently sat down to discuss the evolution of healthcare organizations and noted that transformation will increasingly require coalitions of professionals, with complementary skills and resources.
What sets healthcare organizations apart from other types of organizations?
SC: The healthcare system is currently under a lot of pressure to perform better. Healthcare professionals are frequently asked to adjust or modify the way they work in order to provide better care to patients. But healthcare professionals need to meet different professional goals; they have different roles, cultures and interests. Conflicts are inevitable.
Suppose a health authority grants one group responsibility for a particular procedure, and it was previously the sole responsibility of another group. Any side that perceives a loss of autonomy or authority is likely to strongly resist the change.
But other kinds of changes may encounter opposition simply because they disrupt the normal and accepted way of performing a given task. Take the example of incident reporting for patient safety. If the primary care unit in a hospital has implemented an effective incident reporting system, the hospital might wish to have another unit, for example the mental-health team, adopt that system. However, differences in the culture and professional practices may be incompatible with the new reporting system and prevent its adoption by the mental-health team.
What can managers do to ensure that the required change can be implemented?
SC: One of my studies concerned a collaboration across healthcare organizations in a primary care context. The study showed that to be successful in implementing the change, managers needed to build a winning coalition of professionals and staff who have complementary skills and resources. But to build such a coalition, time needs to be invested in finding common ground across professionals and staff, in putting together trust between professionals and staff involved, and in building the credibility of the change process.
Therefore, there needs to be somebody whose job is to manage the change process. That approach is ultimately going to bring more success than asking busy healthcare practitioners to take on additional change-management tasks. When you don’t have a person that owns and manages the change process, you are likely to see a dilution of change focus and a loss of momentum.
What type of management style or approach should be encouraged, given the need for professionals and staff to coalesce around significant change?
SC: The research provides evidence about the benefits of having a small number of individuals (e.g., managers, professionals) with complementary competencies and resources in bringing important organizational changes to fruition. But this approach might create a lack of clarity. There might be ambiguity about who is responsible for what, which can lead to duplication of efforts or to one or more tasks falling through the cracks. I have also studied situations in which intractable conflicts developed among the members of a management group, and the teams working under them deteriorated as a result.
The risks of these scenarios are at the heart of a big debate about how leadership should be organized. In particular, when and how to share or distribute leadership. Shared leadership happens at different levels, for example, within teams, organizations, and inter-organizational collaborations. Change-management processes, such as the need for integration between healthcare teams, sometimes point to the need for shared leadership. On the other hand, for the reasons I mentioned, shared leadership isn’t necessarily a panacea. Without doubt, understanding when and how leadership can be shared, and what type of collective leadership is appropriate in different change-management settings, will continue to be a hot topic for any healthcare organization for the foreseeable future.
- Category: Alumni in the Lead
The Best Possible Care
Make sure your patients and their families are at the centre of everything you do. Engage healthcare professionals who are highly skilled and give them the resources required to do their jobs. And build your team of committed and collaborative leaders so that together you can solve problems, overcome challenges and make yours an even better organization. These things matter most to me.
That first point—ensure patients can access high-quality healthcare services in their hometown—has been my highest priority right from the time I graduated from medical school decades ago. Since assuming the role of chief executive officer at The Ottawa Hospital in 2001, I’ve been able to broaden that mission from my own patients and their families to cover thousands of patients and families served by one of the largest healthcare organizations in the country. That’s where the teams of skilled and caring professionals come in. If some people consider me to be a successful leader, it’s because of the intelligence and dedication of others. That’s not false modesty. Since my student days, I’ve been guided by a phrase attributed to Harry S. Truman: “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit.”
Another big part of the credit for my success at The Ottawa Hospital goes to the Telfer School. I graduated from the EMBA program—just weeks before assuming the top job—equipped with skills and knowledge in many disciplines of business. I’ve relied on that ability and understanding every day since. I never anticipated becoming CEO of a large research and teaching hospital: I was an anaesthesiologist, not an executive. But when the challenge presented itself, I was ready to seize it. More to the point, I was prepared to put together teams that enabled our organization to eliminate deficits, raise morale, and ensure patients and their families receive the best possible care. It turns out what matters most to me also makes a difference for others.
- Category: Appointments and Honours
Congratulations to Ivy Lynn Bourgeault on becoming a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS). Fellows elected to the academy are recognized by their peers nationally and internationally for their contributions to the promotion of health science. They demonstrate leadership, creativity, distinctive competencies and a commitment to advance academic health science. Professor Bourgeault and 35 other Canadian researchers were welcomed as CAHS Fellows at the induction ceremony in Montreal on September 15, 2016.
Ivy Lynn Bourgeault is a Professor at the Telfer School of Management and is the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Chair in Gender, Work and Health Human Resources. She has been a consultant to various provincial Ministries of Health in Canada, to Health Canada and to the World Health Organization. Her recent research focuses on the migration of health professionals and their integration into the Canadian healthcare system.
Professor Bourgeault is the Scientific Director of the Ontario Population Health Improvement Research Network and the Ontario Health Human Resource Research Network, both housed at the University of Ottawa with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care. Professor Bourgeault also leads the Canadian Health Human Resources Network (CHHRN) with funding from Health Canada and the CIHR.
The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS)
CAHS provides timely, informed and unbiased assessments of urgent issues affecting the health of Canadians. These assessments, which are based on evidence reviews and leading expert opinion, provide conclusions and recommendations in the name of CAHS. More about CAHS
- Category: Alumni in the Lead
Professor Samia Chreim’s research area is Organizational Theory, which she applies to a variety of fields. Her publications are making an impact in the field of health care management and business management. Two of her articles, published in A-journals, are ranked in the top 10 for the year 2015.
The first article, entitled Fix and forget or fix and report: a qualitative study of tensions at the front line of incident reporting, was published in the BMJ Quality and Safety journal, an international peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the quality and safety of healthcare. The article reports on a study led by Tanya Anne Hewitt, Professor Chreim’s former Ph.D. student in Population Health at the University of Ottawa. In a case study, the research explores how safety problems that health practitioners encounter are being addressed. The study reveals that most practitioners, when faced with a safety problem that they can resolve themselves, tend not to report it. Hewitt and Chreim argue that reporting of hazards and safety problems is important, as it helps establish a more preventive approach.
The second article is entitled The (non) distribution of leadership roles: Considering leadership practices and configurations. Published in Human Relations, a highly regarded peer-reviewed journal, it contributes towards a deeper understanding of leadership and social relationships at and around work. In particular, Professor Chreim’s study investigates the leadership configurations that are possible following mergers and acquisitions. The findings show that mergers and acquisitions bringing together previously autonomous work teams have a lot of ambiguity and variation in terms of their leadership configurations.
The journal Human Relations has published a lengthy discussion of Professor Chreim’s article by a renowned scholar in this area. Peter Gronn of Cambridge University writes that Professor Chreim ‘‘is to be commended for an invaluable contribution and for advancing knowledge in this field.’’
- Category: Latest News
Caitlin Champion, candidate in the M.Sc. Health Systems Program, was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) – Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship. Her thesis research will apply systems analysis to understand the health system interrelationships impacting colorectal cancer screening access in the NWT. A primary aim of the study is to build a foundation for future health system modeling to guide cost effective colorectal cancer screening initiatives with the goal of optimizing access to care.
Caitlin Champion completed a BSc (Honours) in Environmental Science from Acadia University and her MD at the University of Toronto in 2012. She is currently a resident physician in General Surgery at the University of Ottawa, and is pursuing graduate studies though the General Surgery Surgeon Scientist Program (SSP) and University of Ottawa Clinician Investigator Program (CIP).
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Student Voices
The following article was written by a member of our student community. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Telfer School of Management. For more information or to flag inappropriate content, please