Leading Quality Improvement in Healthcare Certificate

Program Director

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Samantha Hamilton is a senior quality, patient safety and risk management professional with over 25 years of experience in a variety of health sectors. She has worked within the pharmaceutical, medical device, biologics, diagnostics, blood, long-term care, home care and acute care (hospital) sectors. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biology (Microbiology specialization), a Master’s degree in Health Administration and a Master's certificate in Risk Management. She holds a CPHQ designation and is trained as a Lean six sigma black belt. Samantha is experienced in quality management systems design, quality and patient safety risk management processes, and a variety of quality improvement tools and techniques. She has presented at provincial and national conferences and has served on community health service boards and participated in provincial committees.  

Samantha is the founder of The Ottawa Hospital Innovation Framework for Healthcare Quality Improvement and primary author in the publication of the Innovation Framework for healthcare quality improvement - the foundational method taught in the Telfer Quality Improvement & Patient Safety Leadership Program that has also been adopted by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is also a faculty member with CHA Learning, teaches in the Telfer Executive Master of Health Administration, and is Program Director and lead facilitator for Telfer Executive Programs’ Quality Improvement & Patient Safety Leadership Program.

Facilitator

Isabelle St-Pierre has been a registered nurse for over 33 years, acquiring extensive experience in a wide range of roles and settings. These include practicing as a registered nurse in hospital environments such as the Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department, as a public health curse for a minicupal government, as an occupational health nurse for federal and municipal governments and in the hospiral setting upporting injured workers and employers as a nurse case manager with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, as a health human resources consultant with the Canadian Nurses Association, as a university professor, and providing consulting services since 2017. 

As a consultant in workplace psychological health, Isabelle brings a wealth of expertise supported by certifications in conflict coaching, workplace investigation, Emotional Intelligence, and NOVA profile, and Enneagram, and the Working Mind mental health training program. She is also trained as a third-party neutral in facilitation and mediation through the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution. She co-founded in 2024 St-Pierre, Gauthier & Co. Inc. 

Isabelle earned her PhD from the University of Ottawa, focusing her thesis on workplace violence. She also holds a graduate-level diploma in adult education and a certificate in occupational health and safety, both from l’Université du Québec en Outaouais. She published several articles and book chapters on workplace violence and workplace integration, and she is a sought-after guest lecturer on these subjects. Dedicated to community engagement, Isabelle volunteers as a conflict coach for Community Conflict Resolution Ottawa. 

Medical Advisor

Dr. Claudia Malic has been caring for pediatric plastic surgery and burn patients since 2014 at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). She has also been conducting research in the field of burns, quality improvement, cleft pathology, and patient education. In 2024, Dr. Malic was appointed Vice-Chair of Quality and Patient Safety for the Department of Surgery at the University of Ottawa after holding the position of Director of Research for the Division of Plastic Surgery at the University of Ottawa since 2016. She is also the Surgeon Champion for the P-NSQIP at CHEO and the Lead and Founder of the Perioperative QI Program at CHEO. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa. She is currently completing certified training at Harvard Medical School.  

Dr. Malic has a continuous commitment to scholarly work with 40 peer-reviewed articles, over 70 national and international podium presentations, and over 40 national and international posters. 

Medical Advisor

Dr. Colin Wilson is a Family Physician who has been working in the healthcare quality improvement space for over a decade. He holds a Master's in Health Quality from Queen's University and graduate level certifications from Harvard. He has successfully carried out various quality improvement projects at the regional, provincial, national and international levels. His projects aim to always employ a simultaneous focus on the duality of the provision of frontline care and system level effects. Specifically, Dr. Wilson is passionate about leveraging the synergistic intersection of complex adaptive system theory with human factors and emerging technologies in healthcare to help achieve the Six Domains of Healthcare Quality as well as Sextuple Aim Healthcare. 

Currently, Dr. Colin Wilson serves as the Clinical Quality Lead for Ontario Health - East.

Medical Advisor

Dr. Ed Kwok is an emergency medicine physician at The Ottawa Hospital and serves as the Deputy Head for Quality and Safety for the department. During his fellowship year, he also obtained a Master’s in Health Administration (MHA) at the Telfer School of Management, where he subsequently returned to lecture and was honoured as the 2014 Teacher of the Year. His special interests and research focus include ED flow, Quality Improvement, and Patient Safety. Ed has successfully led large healthcare change projects, including the development of Emergency Department Surge Plans and the implementation of structured hospital-wide Morbidity & Mortality processes (OM3).