Speakers A-C

The network advances the interests of older consumers, caregivers and providers and fosters opportunities for collaboration between provider organizations, technology companies, and research institutions in exploring product development, testing prototypes, evaluating technology and deploying technology-enabled care models.

Prior to joining CAST, Majd served as an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Robotics and Eldercare Technologies Program at the University of Virginia’s Medical Automation Research Center. His research interests there included passive functional and health assessment, biomedical instrumentation, medical automation, as well as eldercare and assistive technologies.

As a volunteer, Dr. Alwan chaired the Funding Aging Services Technologies committee and the Pilots committee for CAST. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE’s Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and Robotics and Automation Societies, and a member of IEEE-USA’s Medical Technology Policy Committee and the Geriatric Care Workgroup. Alwan also serves on the Alzheimer’s Association’s Work Group on Technology.

Dr. Alwan received his Ph.D. in intelligent robotics from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, a Master’s of Science degree in control engineering with distinction from Bradford University, and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Damascus University.

Dr. Backman is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, at the University of Ottawa, an Affiliate Investigator in the Clinical Epidemiology Program of The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and an Affiliate Investigator in the Care of the Elderly program at the Bruyère Research Institute.

Her research program is focused on improving the quality, safety, and experience of older adults as they navigate through the healthcare system. Her research program covers topics related to frail older adults in acute care, geriatric rehabilitation and long-term care settings. The specific areas of foci include: 1) quality and safety interventions for older adults; 2) safe person- and family-centered care transitions between settings; and 3) sense-sensitive practices for residents living in long-term care communities.

Prior to CABHI, Mel was Co-Founder, President & COO of INTERVENT Canada.  INTERVENT has served over 2.5 million patients globally; over 200 corporations; and has been published in more than 100 peer reviewed major medical journals demonstrating the efficacy of its programs and improvement in health outcomes.

Previously, Mel was a Founding Partner and Executive Director of Scotiabank Private Equity Investments, where, he invested private and public ventures, primarily in financial services and information technology sectors.

Mel was also Director of Business Development & Sales Strategy for corporate card and travel products at American Express.

In his spare time, Mel enjoys playing basketball, guitar and travelling with his wife, 5 kids and Australian Labradoodle.

Dr. Brown has taught leadership at the University of Maryland, served as a White House Fellow, and has worked in a range of sectors including manufacturing, arts, aging services, and the intelligence community. She has a passion for practices that simultaneously connect us with the world of ideas and the world of practice.

A native of a small fishing village in northern Michigan, her heritage is that of agriculture and cooperative extension, which has given her a commitment to the practical use of ideas, frameworks, rich language and reflection as a way to transform our lives and our work. She lives in the USA, on a tidal creek off the Chesapeake Bay. She can be reached at: www.judysorumbrown.com or judybrown@aol.com

Prior to her work at the City of Boston, Andrea worked as an independent journalist and photographer.

Elected as an at-large city councilor in Easthampton, MA in 2009, Andrea worked to enhance quality of life for residents, supporting affordable housing, business development for the agricultural sector, and city planning that embraced the “complete streets” principles.

Joe has an MBA from Babson College and an undergraduate degree from Northeastern University.

Prior to joining Bayer, Dr. Choudhri was an assistant professor in the Departments of Medical Microbiology and Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He was also the director of the AIDS program at the St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg; and the Manitoba satellite director for the Canadian HIV Clinical Trials Network.

Dr. Choudhri obtained his MD and did his specialty training in internal medicine and sub-specialty training in infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. Following completion of his training, he completed a senior research fellowship in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1996, he was awarded the Young Investigator Award by the Canadian Association of HIV Researchers. Dr. Choudhri has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific abstracts and has contributed to over 40 peer-reviewed publications. He played an active role in the creation of the Canadian Clinical Trials Asset Map. Dr. Choudhri is currently the chair of the Canadian Clinical Trials Coordinating Centre executive committee, a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH) institutional advisory board, and a member of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada (CANet) board. He is a passionate advocate for mobile and digital Health and is also member of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) Mobile Health Advisory Board.

Family physician with a Certificate of Added competence in Care of the Elderly.

Clinical Consultant for Senior’s Mental Health Outreach.

Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University.

Member of the Ontario Retirement Communities Association Dementia Task Force.

Member of the Health Quality Ontario Quality Improvement Committee.

Dr. Costa is an Assistant Professor and Schlegel Research Chair in Clinical Epidemiology & Aging in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Department of Medicine at McMaster University. He also serves as the Research Director at the DeGroote School of Medicine, Waterloo Regional Campus. He is an interRAI Fellow, Associate Scientific Director of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, and Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). His program of research makes use of health information (‘big data’) to target, develop, and evaluate models of care in home and community care, emergency departments, and long-term care. 

Main Affiliations: 

• Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact
  (formerly “Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics”), McMaster University;
• Department of Medicine, McMaster University

Main Titles/Positions: 

• Assistant Professor & Schlegel Chair in Clinical Epidemiology and Aging (2014-)
• Research Director, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, Waterloo Regional Campus (2017-)

Research & Educational Interests:  Geriatrics/care of older adults; health care design, delivery, & analysis (models of care); health measurement; prognostic modeling, diagnostic algorithms and decision support; chronic disease management; large cohort studies; pragmatic trial methods

Current Projects (as PI, co-PI):

• DIVERT-CARE TRIAL (Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT03012256), largest Canadian pragmatic cluster randomized trial in home care. Funded by: CIHR.
• The Physician Quality Score in Long-term Care. Developing and validating process-based quality measures for medical practice in nursing homes across North America. Collaborating with Baycrest, Rand Health (USA), UCLA, and Florida State University. Funder: CCABHI.
• Health Data Library, a data portal for census-level personal health information and high-end analytics (machine learning, etc.). Includes extensive personal health information from the HNHB LHIN and Schlegel Villages. Funded by: CIHR, HNHB LHIN, and Schlegel Villages.
• ICES McMaster, various projects using census-level Ontario data, including:
  • Creating the first Census-level Retirement Home Cohort in Ontario
  • Influence of Nursing Home Resident Characteristics, Staffing, Medications, and Physician Models of Care on Hospital Transfers in Ontario
  • Influence of primary care model on urgent and emergent health service use among home care client
  • Funded by: ON MOHLTC (HSRF), CIHR.
• Common Assessments for Repeated Paramedic Service Encounters (CARPE), large prospective cohort study of community paramedicine patients in Ontario. Funded by: MITACS.
• Community Paramedicine Secretariat of Ontario. Collaboration with Mount Sinai Hospital to house the Secretariat and its functions. Funded by: All Ontario LHINs.
• ACT ON Chronic Disease, development and deployment of a multi-platform informal caregiver education program in home care. Funded by: ON MOHLTC.
• McMaster Passport for Ageing / Geriatric Education “MacPAGE” (https://macpage.mcmaster.ca, a scalable education program to introduce medical students to the care of older adults though experiential learning and skills development.
• McMaster Evidence-based Medicine Case Report Journal (https://ebmcr.mcmaster.ca/), features real clinical cases to show how evidence-based medicine should be practiced.

Key Recent Publications:

• Schumacher C, Lackey C, Haughton D, Peirce T, Boscart VM, Davey M, Harkness K, Heckman GA, Junek M, McKelvie R, Mitchell L, Sinha SK, Costa AP. A Chronic Disease Management Intervention for Home Care Patients with Cardio-Respiratory Symptoms: The DIVERT-CARE Intervention. Canadian Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing (CJCN), 2018, 28(3): 18-26.
• Jones, A.^; Schumacher C.; Bronskill S.; Campitelli M.; Poss J.; Seow H.; Costa A.P. The association between home care services and same-day emergency department utilization: a case-crossover study. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2018 Apr 30; 190(17): E525–E531
• Costa, A.P. Charting age-associated cognitive decline. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2017, 189(48):E1470-1471.
• Brousseau, A.^; Dent, E.; Hubbard, R.; Melady, D.; Emond, M.; Mercier, E.; Costa, A.P. Identification of older adults with frailty in the Emergency Department using a Frailty Index: Results from a Multinational Study. Age and Ageing, 2017, Nov 20:1-7.

Team (grant funding): 1 FTE Post-doc, 4 FTE research staff, 5 PhD Students, 4 MSc Students, 3 part-time research support staff  

Recent Awards & Honours:

• 2018 Mentorship & Supervision Excellence Award (Full Time/Joint Faculty), Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, & Impact; McMaster University
• 2018 Regional Assistant Dean’s Award of Excellence in Medical Education, McMaster M.G. DeGroote Waterloo Regional Campus

Website (research): https://bdg.mcmaster.ca/
Website (education): https://wrcresearch.mcmaster.ca/
Twitter: @andrew_p_costa
Google Scholar Link:  https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=61vetQ4AAAAJ&hl=en

Steven is currently a member of the South West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) Long-Term Care Homes Network Council and a member of the OLTCA’s Financial Liaison Committee.

Dr. Mohammad Mahoor graduated with a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Miami, with undergraduate and master’s degrees from Iran. Dr. Mahoor is co-founder and president of DreamFace Tech, LLC, an organization that is committed to fully develop the “Ryan CompanionBot”, helping people with dementia. Dr. Mahoor has had his work published in numerous scholarly publications and has been interviewed by multimedia organizations such as Forbes online.