Room: TBA
Recommended for: All attendees
As AI tools become a routine source of health information and advice, clinicians are navigating new opportunities and challenges in patient engagement, digital health literacy, misinformation, and accountability. Bringing together some of the leading voices in digital health, policy, and innovation, this panel of experts examine how AI is reshaping healthcare interactions and discusses practical strategies for helping people use AI safely while maintaining trust, quality, and equity in care.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Explore how patients are already using AI : from symptom and health information to wearables, remote monitoring and AI-generated advice, and what this means for the clinician–patient relationship.
- Examine how clinicians and the health system should respond when patients arrive with AI-generated information, recommendations and expectations, including questions of trust, transparency, accountability and the changing role of the clinician.
- Identify practical approaches to ensure AI-enabled care is safe, equitable and human-centred, particularly for patients who may be less digitally connected or more vulnerable to being left behind.
Speakers:
- Michael Evans, MD, Physician, educator, former Apple staffer, and health innovator transforming the way health information is communicated
- Chandi Chandrasena, MD, Chief Medical Officer, OntarioMD
- Jennifer Zelmer
- Tajirian
Presenter Bios:
Michael Evans, MD
Dr. Mike Evans is a physician-innovator whose career spans primary care, academic medicine, public education, and human-centered health technology. A Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Toronto, he practiced inner-city medicine for over 25 years while leading national and international research and founding a health media lab and film company.
Passionate about making complex health ideas practical and accessible, he built a “Med School for the Public” at U of T, then scaled it on YouTube, where his whiteboard videos have reached more than 35 million learners worldwide. He holds the world’s first endowed Chair in Patient Engagement at the University of Toronto, and his work has been profiled in JAMA, The Lancet, and BMJ. He received the McNeil Medal from the Royal Society of Canada for excellence in communicating science to the public.
In 2017, he became one of the first physicians recruited to Apple, helping design “better life experiments” for a billion users by blending wearables, AI, behavioral science, and storytelling into healthier daily habits. He’s currently building a public education and an interdisciplinary studio prototyping the future of health education, while advising others navigating this rapidly evolving space, from AI startups to the Olympics
Chandi Chandrasena, MD
Dr. Chandrasena joined OntarioMD (OMD) as its Chief Medical Officer (CMO) in 2021. She is a family physician practicing in Ottawa for almost 20 years and a former OMD Physician Peer Leader who has mentored many of her colleagues to use EMRs and digital health tools effectively to enhance patient care. As CMO, she provides clinical advice at provincial and national tables and clinician advisory groups and is instrumental in forging system-level partnerships.
Jennifer Zelmer
Dr. Jennifer Zelmer is the inaugural President and CEO of Healthcare Excellence Canada, which focuses on shaping a future where everyone in Canada has safe, high-quality healthcare. Jennifer is also the President of the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research, a C.D. Howe Research Fellow, and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Victoria, as well as a member of several health-related advisory committees and boards.
Tania Tajirian
TBA