The Living Laboratory – Assessing Digital Tools for Clinicians

Presenter Bios:

Payal Agarwal, MD

As a family physician and Integrated Chief Medical Informatics and Innovation Officer for Kitchener-Waterloo’s Grand River and St. Mary’s Hospitals, Dr. Agarwal is passionate about using digital health solutions to engage physicians and patients. A longtime supporter of women taking a larger role in health technology, she is committed to building bridges between groups (leveraging her engineering degree at the same time!) and reciprocating the mentorship she received from other women in medicine. She led the strategy to optimize digital health tools at Grand River and St. Mary’s Hospitals and has played a crucial role in developing and implementing Evidence2Practice Ontario to facilitate digitally enabled health care. She has also incorporated secure messaging and other integrated programs into her own practice for a more collaborative, human-centred approach to patient care and believes the “EMR is a great place to collaborate, especially for patients with complex medical histories, so that everyone involved in their care can work together continuously and seamlessly.” Dr. Agarwal was named by Digital Health Canada as one of the 2023 Women Leaders in Digital Health attesting to her outstanding leadership and is a 2023 OntarioMD Luminary Award winner recognized for her outstanding contributions to advance digital health.

Jim has been the Director of Client Engagement at OntarioMD (OMD) since 2018. He manages the activities of three Regional Teams who work with clinicians across Ontario. He has more than 35 years of experience working with physician practices through medical laboratories, system consulting and digital tools. He has worked in the areas of operations, information technology, project management, finance, quality improvement & automation, client engagement and digital tools adoption/use in both Canada and the United States.