Summer 2007


Can we innovate fast enough to avoid health care "tsunami"?

2007 Ontario R&E Summit Highlights

Canada faces a looming health care "tsunami" unless it moves quickly to innovate and make greater use of new and innovative technologies.

That was the blunt message Dr. Alejandro (Alex) Jadad, Chief Innovator & Founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, had for the audience at the annual Ontario Research and Education Summit, June 4 and 5 in Toronto.


Dr. Alejandro Jadad, Chief Innovator and Founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Information, delivers his closing keynote address on using communication technologies to innovate our health care system.

In a provocative address, Dr. Jadad asked how the Canadian health care system can keep us healthy, instead of just treating our illnesses. Calling for more resources into health prevention and health promotion, Dr. Jadad stressed the need to create a person-centered approach to health care, and ultimately to use communication and information technology to innovate our failing health care system.

"We need to learn a new language of collaboration," he said, noting that Canada is slipping in global health care and innovation rankings and sounded the alarm on a "tsunami" in health care that is quickly approaching as Canada begins to deal with an increasing aging population with a higher average age of mortality combined with a lower birth rate.

"This technology can help us transcend our cognitive, physical, institutional, geographical, cultural, linguistic, and historical boundaries. Or it can contribute to our extinction," he said.

His comments were echoed by ORION Board Chair Dr. Stan Shapson, VP of Research and Innovation at York University, who noted that Summit speakers and sessions also brought home the need to "push toward the next wave of innovation... there is an urgency."

The keynote was the final of over 40 speakers and panellists participating at the Summit this year, with sessions ranging from innovations in collaborative technologies for health and teaching, to colleges' contribution to applied research, to closing the gap between researchers and information technology leaders to deliver the right infrastructure and support systems.

The Summit attracted over 170 people over the course of the two-day conference, co-hosted by and staged at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.

Rob Pennington, Deputy Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), was the opening speaker. He outlined the current status of cyberinfrastructure development and support in the United States, setting the stage for a lively roundtable discussion on the state of cyberinfrastructure deployment in Canada.

Dr. Curtis Bonk, world-renowned professor of instructional systems technology at Indiana University, gave a whimsical and engaging keynote on knowledge sharing and technology trends that are equalizing access to learning.


Dr. Curtis Bonk from Indiana University talks about online tools transforming teaching and learning.

Canadian futurist Jim Carroll also offered his insights on innovation and where the high-velocity voyage of technology is taking us, in the context of business, healthcare, society and education.

Among the Summit highlights was the 16-year-old winner of the EXTREME Virtual Reality (VR) Science Fair, invited to present his project at a session on Youth and Science chaired by TVOntario CEO Lisa De Wilde. The senior high school student, Alexandre Harvey from Temiskaming Shores in northeastern Ontario, used open source 3D modeling software to illustrate a method of naturally decontaminating wood waste at a local forestry processing facility.



EXTREME VR Science Fair winner Alexandre Harvey (centre) with (from left to right) Jane Djivre and Andrew Dasys of MIRARCO, and TVOntario CEO Lisa de Wilde.

The session also featured a presentation on the new Virtual Researchers on Call (VROC) program, which links researchers with high school students via videoconference in the classroom.

Attendees had the chance to experience the new 3-D iAnatomy collection of anatomical images, a collaboration between the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) and California's Stanford University School of Medicine, which makes use of new, advanced technologies that are transforming the way medical education is taught and learned. Attendees were able to view the 3D visualization using 3D glasses to see the images projected on a ten-foot-screen specially brought in for the demonstration.



Summit attendees view the iAnatomy stereoscopic images wearing 3D glasses.

The CANARIE Showcase presented examples of recent research and development conducted at the National Research Council Institute for Information Technology, including a recent collaboration with the Louvre in Paris on the Mona Lisa.



Christian Couturier, Director General of the NRC-IIT, presents on the collaboration with the Louvre on the Mona Lisa.

Most of the presentations, several video streams and a photo gallery of this year's event can be downloaded from the Summit web site.

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