Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Leadership Program

Medical Advisor

Dr. 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. 

Co-Program Director

LinkedIn

Samantha Hamilton is a quality, patient safety and risk management professional with over 20 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 Masters in Health Administration and a Masters Certificate in Risk Management. She is holds a CPHQ designation and is trained as a Lean six sigma black belt. She 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. In her current role she directs the Quality, Patient Safety & Infection Control team at The Ottawa Hospital and is the founder of the TOH Innovation Framework for Healthcare QI and primary author in the publication of the Innovation Framework for healthcare QI. Samantha is also a faculty member with CHA Learning and is Co-Program Director and on faculty for the Telfer Quality Improvement & Patient Safety Leadership Program.

Co-Program Director

Mary has spent more than 35 years in the business of helping individuals and organizations through the change process where the majority of her work has been in the health care and hospital field. She is currently Principal of Align Associates Inc., providing expertise in leadership development & coaching, quality improvement, interpersonal & team effectiveness for physicians, meeting & retreat facilitation and human resources management.

For the last 23 years, Mary has been on faculty with the Canadian Medical Association’s Physician Leadership Institute.  She is currently co-facilitator of Momentum, an annual week-long leadership retreat for Medical Women.  In addition, she has designed and delivered courses on behalf of the Quality Health Network. Mary is a founding member of, and currently serves on, the Steering Committee of the Canadian Physician Coaches Network. 

Mary’s undergraduate degree in is Psychology. She has a Master of Education degree in Adult Education (Human Resources Development) and completed an internship in Organization & Human Resources Development (University Associates in Tucson AZ).  She completed her Coaches Training in 2015 and is certified in Emotional Intelligence (Multi-Health Systems) Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability (Vital Smarts).