Greg Richards Presented at University of Ottawa Conference on Use of Digital Technologies in Healthcare

Professor Greg Richards chaired a workshop at the University of Ottawa’s Digital Transformation 4.0 Conference on the use of information technologies in patient-centred healthcare. Director of the IBM Centre for Business Analytics and Performance at the Telfer School, professor Richards chaired a session titled “Identifying challenges in healthcare that can be resolved through collaboration with technology companies.”

The Digital Transformation 4.0 Conference held in Ottawa on October 30 focused on the use of digital technologies in optimizing patient-engagement and patient-focused care. The event brought together a diverse group of leaders and organizations including: the VP Research, University of Ottawa, Technology Transfer and Business Enterprise, University of Ottawa (TTBE), the CEOs of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Queensway Carleton Hospital, the VP Innovation and Business Development at CHEO, MDI Solutions, CAE Inc., the Whitestone Group, the Canadian Association for People Centred Health, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

Healthcare is now the largest single item in government expenditures and plays an important role in our community and in Canada’s society. We are at a cross-road in the utilization of health information technologies in healthcare, moving from institutional legacy systems, to mobile bed-side applications for the healthcare provider, to patient- and consumer-centric tools. Leaders from the healthcare sector, academia, and industry discussed the challenges and new opportunities related to the use of information technologies in healthcare.