Healthcare Improvement Fellowship

Samuel Boudreault has been a family physician in Quebec, Canada, since 2011. His strong interest in evidence-based medicine took him to the University of Oxford in England, where he earned a Master’s degree in Evidence-Based Health Care in 2016. He is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Université Laval and has served as the Family Medicine Program Director since 2021. Since 2020, he has also been a member of the steering committee for Choosing Wisely Quebec.

Chandan Bal is a pediatric hospital medicine physician at the Alberta Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary. Dr. Bal’s fellowship focused on applying quality improvement methods to provide high-value care to hospitalized children.

Elaine Bland is a family doctor in Calgary, Alberta. Dr. Bland’s fellowship project focused on developing a framework to integrate Choosing Wisely based quality improvement into primary care networks. This involved multidisciplinary teams and patient partners, aiming to address patient needs, reduce unnecessary tests, and support deprescribing.

Mikha Alegria is the Quality Improvement Specialist for the Sprott Centre for Quality and Safety at the University Health Network (UHN). Her fellowship project focused on expanding patient blood management initiatives within the perioperative department and critical care, aligning with Choosing Wisely Canada’s best practices.

Marko Balan is an intensivist and internist practicing in St John’s, NL. He completed his core internal medicine residency and critical care fellowship at Dalhousie University, along with a critical care ultrasound fellowship at Western University. In 2019, he completed the EQUIP at CQuIPS and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Healthcare Quality degree at Queens University. His clinical and healthcare quality interests include reducing low-value care within intensive care units, and medical education and quality assurance in point-of-care ultrasound.

Thomas Bodley is an internal medicine and critical care physician at the Scarborough Health Network (SHN) in Scarborough, Ontario. He is finishing his MSc in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto, which focuses on the development and validation of quality indicators for ICU team performance. Through the fellowship, Thomas built capacity for healthcare sustainability initiatives in critical care across Canada.

Joey Cheng-Singleton is the MRI Team Lead at the Hospital for Sick Children, which allows her to advocate for her profession as a radiological technologist as well as make a difference via quality improvement and patient safety initiatives within and beyond Diagnostic Imaging (DI). Joey is currently completing a Master’s in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the University of Toronto. Her passion lies in improving overall patient experience and outcomes through improving accessibility to DI services with a focus on equitable, diverse, and inclusive needs of patients.

Mathilde Gaudreau Simard is a general internist at the Ottawa Hospital. She earned her medical degree from McGill University after completing a law degree at the University of Montreal. Most recently, she completed a master’s in health administration at the University of Toronto. Her quality improvement work revolves around two themes – point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) and planetary health.

Katie Gardner is a pediatric emergency physician at IWK Health in Halifax. Dr. Gardner’s project focused on sustainable inhaler prescribing for pediatric asthma in the acute care setting.

Katrina Piggott practices inpatient and outpatient geriatric medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Dr. Piggott’s project focused on reducing the overuse and associated harm of unnecessary urine cultures and urinary antimicrobials in long-term care.

Holly Rector practices as an adult nurse practitioner in cardiology at Women’s College Hospital. Holly’s project focused on decreasing benzodiazepines in outpatient settings within nursing professional practice.

William Silverstein is a general internist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Dr. Silverstein’s project focused on resource stewardship competencies in medical school education and evaluating the impact of the Students and Trainees Advocating for Resource Stewardship (STARS) program.