The global pandemic has profoundly impacted many aspects of Canada’s daily social life. In the healthcare sector, patient access to and delivery of medical services went distanced and virtual to meet stringent and mandatory health and safety requirements, while many design projects were stalled or had to shift.
The last few years have profoundly impacted Canadian's daily social life. In the healthcare sector, some projects were completed, and some were abandoned during the pandemic. What have we learned from this experience?
Adopting digital healthcare and patient-centred approaches has accelerated with the rise of these delivery methods. We are now witnessing an unprecedented embrace of digital healthcare. It has become increasingly convenient to access our medical information online and open ourselves up to these evolved services, much like any other consumer service at our fingertips. The focus now is ensuring prompt and accessible healthcare when needed, which has become a new priority.
Nevertheless, our healthcare system faces significant challenges, such as a surging aging population, the overdose crisis, growing mental health issues, and structural weaknesses. These factors highlight the urgent need for profound change and modernization at a systemic level.
Join us for our anticipated upcoming hybrid event, DesignMeets: Healthcare Resiliency, as we seek to explore the real impact of COVID-19 on our healthcare system and the process of adaptation ahead of us to inform our codesign strategy and process for building strength and resilience in the face of these changes.
Event Speakers
Yordanos Woldemariam, MDes
Yordanos is an accomplished public health and social service professional with expertise in community health, health equity, mental health and chronic health conditions with a specialization in design thinking and design research methodologies. She has extensive experience managing and collaborating with diverse stakeholders to solve complex population health problems and driving forward change in the health and social service sector.
Dr. Ariel Dalfen, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Ariel Dalfen is a psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience treating women of all ages: from those trying to conceive through to the perimenopausal population. Dr. Ariel Dalfen co-founded BRIA (www.betterbria.com) after running the largest perinatal mental health program in Ontario for 12 years and starting the first of its kind Perinatal Mental Health Telemedicine Program in Canada, in 2014—way before virtual care became popular!
Colleen Young
Colleen Young (@colleen_young) is a social innovator and online community strategist. She is internationally recognized for her expertise in building online health communities that thrive. Clients include Mayo Clinic, College of Family Physicians Canada, Canadian Virtual Hospice, Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, Hjernerystelsesforeningen Denmark, EURODIS, and more. Using strategic community management approaches, Colleen has developed a proven framework to help non-profit, especially health and patient organizations build online communities that work.
Yoshi Perera, MDes, MPH, MBBS
Yoshi identifies as a queer, South Asian settler on this land. He goes by he/him pronouns and is a healthcare disruptor at heart. Equipped with formal education in Public Health and Clinical Medicine, he has navigated a variety of experiences supporting health communications, primary healthcare delivery and community health promotion programs. His experiences are shaped by the importance of centering community voices and working with communities to support health equity gains.