These seminars aim to increase the overall awareness of health informatics, to show their relevance to the health system, and to address key issues. Senior industry, healthcare and academic innovators, thought leaders and experts are invited to give these lectures and have included Dr. Roger Cote, Dr. Jim Anderson, Hon. Horace Krever, Dr. Jan Steiner, Mr. Steve Huesing, Dr. Octo Barnett, Mr. Tom Closson, Mr. Richard Alvarez, and Senator Michael Kirby to name a few. Seminar hosts and organizers over the years include: The infraNET Project (University of Waterloo), the Lawson Research Institute (University of Western Ontario), the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research (University of Waterloo), and the National Institutes of Health Informatics.

January 2010 - April 2010: "The eHealth Crises"

March 30, 2010 - EHealth: Refurbishing a Tarnished Brand
William Pascal, Chief Technology Officer, Canadian Medical Association

January 26, 2010 - The Magical Vanishing EHR
Doug Tessier, Senior Vice President of Development and Implementation, eHealth Ontario

January 2009 - November 2009:  "The Many Facets and Faces of Health Informatics"

November 24, 2009 - A View of the Canadian Healthcare IT Industry - A Radical Perspective!
Ronald L. Dunn, Vice-President, Sales, Integrated Healthcare Solutions, McKesson Canada

October 30, 2009 - Strategy for eHealth Innovation
William M. Tatham, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NexJ Systems Inc.

September 29, 2009 - Intelligent Hospitals: How Technology Can Transform Healthcare Beyond the EHR
Brantz Myers, Director, Healthcare Business Development, Cisco Canada

June 24, 2009 - Hospital Information Systems - The Promise and Reality
Jim Shave, President, Cerner Canada

May 27, 2009 - Neonatal Health Informatics: Uncharted Discovery
Carolyn McGregor, Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics, Faculty of Business and IT/Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

April 22, 2009 - Advancing Health Informatics as a Profession
Neil Gardner, Chief Information Officer, Saskatchewan Health

March 25, 2009 - The Crucial Role of HIM Professionals on the eHealth Team
Gail Crook, CEO and Registrar, CHIMA

February 25, 2009 - Health Informatics - Tomorrow's Industry
Brendan Seaton, President, ITAC Health

January 28, 2009 - Informatics and the Continuum of Care: The Changing Landscape
Wayne Gudbranson, President & CEO, Branham Group Inc.

January 2008 - November 2008:  "The Many Facets and Faces of Health Informatics"

January 16, 2008 - Health Informatics: Critical Support for Clinical Research
Dr. David Hill, Professor, Department of Physiology & Pharmacology, University of Western Ontario
Scientific Director, Lawson Health Research Institute

February 27, 2008 - Personalized Medicine: Today and Tomorrow
Dr. Richard Kim, Professor of  Medicine and Physiology & Pharmacology;  Scientist, LHRI 
Chair, Division of Chair Pharmacology;  Director, Centre for Clinical Investigation & Therapeutics,  University of Western Ontario

March 26, 2008 - Smart Systems for Health Agency – Helping Improve Ontario’s Health Care Through e-Health Innovation
William Albino, CEO, Smart Systems for Health Agency

April 30, 2008 - Managing the Medical Image Tsunami: Reducing Data Volume
Dr. David KoffChief, Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Hamilton Health Sciences
& Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Radiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University

May 28, 2008 - Geographic Informatics Systems for Community Health
Mr. Tom Vair, Executive Director and Ms. Michelle Courneene, Health Informatics Development Manager, Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre

June 25, 2008 - Illness in the Age of 'e' : How Connected Technology Changes the Patient Experience
Dr. Daniel Sands, Senior Medical Informatics Director, Cisco Systems & Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

September 24, 2008 - Standardized MR Imaging of the Brain: A Global Approach to Study Disease
E. Mark Haacke, Professor, Department of Radiology, Wayne State University
Director, MRI Institute for Biomedical Research & Director, MR Research Facility

October 29, 2008 - System-Supported Clinical Practice: Linking People, Process and Information Together
William W. Stead, Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategy/Transformation
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

November 26, 2008 - Healthcare, Biobank and Research Information Systems in the UK
Stephen Walker, Professor of Healthcare (Research Informatics), University of Manchester
Chief Information Officer, UK Biobank 

January 2007 - November 2007: "Why Not" Anniversary Series

The 2007 seminar series is dedicated to "Why Not?", the theme for the University of Waterloo's 50th anniversary. This series will celebrate our past, but, more importantly, it will look ahead and plan for our future related to health informatics ideas and innovations. It will look at questions such as "Why not use the promise of information and communications technologies to improve health and the health-care system in Canada?" "Why not rethink how we provide health care?" "Why not do more to make it possible to receive health-care at home or in the community?" The series will feature international experts who will address these and other key questions and ideas related to health and health care.

January 24, 2007 - Why Not Bring Medications Out of the Dark Ages?
Jake Thiessen, Hallman Director, School of Pharmacy and
Director, Health Sciences Campus, University of Waterloo

February 28, 2007 - Why Not a Cognitive Science Approach to Understanding Clinician-Computer Interaction?
Dr. Vimla Patel, Professor, Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, USA

March 28, 2007 - Why Not Improve Health Care Through Effective Knowledge Translation?
Dr. Brian Haynes, Chair, Dept. of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics; Professor, Dept. of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics & Dept of Medicine, McMaster University

April 25, 2007 - Why Not Create the Ideal Health System Through Health Informatics?
Mr. Tom Closson, Health Care Management Consultant & Former President and CEO, University Health Network

May 23, 2007 - Why Not Evidence-based Health Policies for Nations? The Case of Global Tobacco Control.
Dr. Geoffrey Fong, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo

June 27, 2007 - Why Not Address Clinician Knowledge Management Needs?
Dr. Octo Barnett, Professor, Harvard Medical School and Senior Research Director, Massachusetts General Hospital

September 26, 2007 - Why Not e-Health Care? The Resistance to Change in our Health Care System.
Hon. Michael Kirby, Former Senator and Chair, Mental Health Commission of Canada

October 24, 2007 - Why Not Safer Health Care Right Now?
Dr. Peter Norton, MD, CCFP, FCFP
Professor, Department of Family Medicine, University of Calgary

November 28, 2007 - Why Not Advance Health Informatics Education Through Our Colleges?
Dr. Stefan V. Pantazi (MD, PhD) and Dr. Yuri Kagolovsky (MD, MS)
Program Coordinators and Professors, Health Informatics
School of Health Sciences, Community Services and Biotechnology
Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning

September 2005 - November 2006: eHealth Strategies: Local to Global

The infraNET Project and the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research hosted a special seminar series entitled "Smarter Health: eHealth Strategies: Local to Global". Speakers in this series will give presentations on eHealth information strategies and projects that are underway locally, provincially, nationally and internationally.

September 28, 2005 - Standing on a Burning Platform: Implementing a Province Wide Wait-time Information System
Sarah Kramer, VP & CIO, Cancer Care Ontario and
Lead, Ontario Wait Time Information Strategy

October 26, 2005 - Getting to Filmless: A Shared Digital Imaging Initiative
Diane Beattie, VP, Integrated Health Information & CIO,
London Health Sciences Centre/St. Joseph's Health Centre London

November 23, 2005 - Accelerating the Development and Implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHR)
Richard Alvarez, President & CEO, Canada Health Infoway

January 25, 2006 - Drowning in Data: What's a Healthcare Provider to Do?
Ian McKillop, JW Graham Chair in Health Information Systems and
Associate Professor, Computer Science & Health Studies and Gerontology, University of Waterloo

February 22, 2006 - In Pursuit of the EHR Holy Grail: A Critical Situational Review
Dominic Covvey, Professor, Faculty of Science
NSERC/Agfa Research Chair in Health Informatics
Founding Director, Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research
University of Waterloo

March 22, 2006 - Ontario Laboratories Information System Project (OLIS)
A strategic change initiative for eHealth in Ontario
Ernie Wallace, Executive Lead, Strategic Initiatives, Smart Systems for Health Agency

April 26, 2006 - New Strategies for Health Care in the Home
Judith Shamian, President and CEO, VON Canada

May 24, 2006 - Ontario's Public Health E-Health Strategy - Supporting Public Health Renewal
Dr. George Pasut, Executive Lead, Public Health Information System Transformation
Ministry of Health and Long Term Care

June 21, 2006 - Physician's Office in the Era of eHealth
Dr. Bill Haver, Family Physician and Senior Partner, Lakeside Medical Clinic, Saskatoon

September 27, 2006 - Engaging Physicians in Ontario’s eHealth Strategy
Brian Forster, Chief Operation Officer, OntarioMD

October 25, 2006 - eHealth Strategies in Support of Psychiatry
Peter Catford, VP Information Management, CIO & CPO
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

November 22, 2006 - Advanced Hospital Systems in the Context of eHealth Strategies
Matt Anderson, CIO SIMS Partnership; Health Lead, Toronto Central LHIN; VP University Health Network

September 2004 - June 2005: Emerging Solutions - Health Informatics Tools for the Future

The infraNET Project and the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research hosted a special seminar series entitled "Smarter Health: Emerging Solutions - Health Informatics Tools for the Future". Speakers in this innovative series will present new, emerging, disruptive, innovative technologies, concepts, methods or processes that have the potential of positively impacting health or the health system.

September 22, 2004 - My CARE Source: A Web-Based Patient Portal
Glen Kearns and Claudette DeLenardo, Grand River Hospital

October 27, 2004 - NORTH Network and the Future of Telemedicine
Dr. Ed Brown, MD, Executive Director, NORTH Network

November 24, 2004 - Paediatric Rehabilitation Engineering: Enabling Participation Through Engineering
Dr. Tom Chau, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering,
University of Toronto

January 26, 2005 - Grand Challenges for Biomedical Information Retrieval in the 21st Century
Dr. William Hersh, Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology,
School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University

February 23, 2005 - Areas of IT Strategic Emphasis in Healthcare Organizations
Dr. John Glasser, VP & CIO, Partners Healthcare System Inc.

March 23, 2005 - Rattling the Supply Chain: The Opportunity of Supply Chain Management in Healthcare
Sarah Friesen, General Manager, Shared Healtcare Supply Services

April 20, 2005 - The Human Side of Health Informatics
Jim Anderson, Professor, Purdue University

May 25, 2005 - Managing Risk in Health Information Systems
Michael Connolly, CEO & Brendan Seaton, CP&SO
Smart Systems for Health Agency

June 22, 2005 - eHealth is Changing Health Care Culture
Sam Marafioti, Vice Chair, Ontario Hospital eHealth Council
VP, Corporate Strategy & Development and CIO
Sunnybrook & Women's College Health Sciences Centre

September 2003 - June 2004: Leadership in Health Informatics

The infraNET Project and the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research hosted a special seminar series entitled "Smarter Health: Leadership in Health Informatics". This innovative series explored leadership in the development and deployment of Information and Communications Technology (IT) and Information Management (IM) solutions in the area of health.

September 24, 2003 - Health and Wellness in the Internet Age
Dr. Alex Jadad, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation

October 22, 2003 - Mining Health-Related Data: Methods and Applications in Research, Public Health, and Patient Care
Dr. John Holmes, Assistant Professor, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

November 26, 2003 - Creating a Vocabulary of Medicine: From SNOP to SNOMED International
Roger A. Côté, M.D., Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Sherbrooke

January 28, 2004 - 30 Years of Computers in Medical Imaging
Dr. Terry Peters, Robarts Research Institute and UWO

February 25, 2004 - From Data to Health Information
Jean-Marie Berthelot, Statistics Canada

March 24, 2004 - Is Privacy Really Important? Implications in the Health System and Record Keeping
The Honorable Horace Krever

April 28, 2004 - Developing an Integrated Health Intelligence System: The RAI-Health Informatics Project (RAI-HIP)
Dr. John Hirdes, Professor, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, University of Waterloo

May 26, 2004 - The Challenge of Measuring Outcomes in the Healthcare System
Dr. David Zitner, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University

June 23, 2004 - Human Computer Interaction in Health Informatics: From Laboratory Usability Testing to “Televaluation” of Web-based Information Systems
Dr. Andre Kushniruk, Professor, Faculty of Arts, York University

September 2002 - June 2003: Innovations in Health Informatics

The infraNET Project and the Education Program for Health Informatics (EPHIP) hosted a special monthly seminar series which presented innovative contributions of industry and collaborations between industry and health organizations. Industry and healthcare experts gave presentations, followed by a 30-40 minute facilitated discussion. These seminars, hosted by David Johnston, President of the University of Waterloo, were from September 2003 to June 2003.

September 18, 2002 - Innovations in Medical Image Management
Jim Herrewynen and Steve Rankin, Mitra Inc.

October 16, 2002 - Integrating the Health Record
Andrew Szende, Hospital for Sick Children and Pat Billard, IBM Inc.

November 20, 2002 - Reducing Medical Errors: Applying Just-In Time Knowledge
Patricia Beretta and Rick Stroobosscher, Medicalis Corp.

January 15, 2003 - Grids for Reliable Storage and  Secure Transmission of Medical Images
Moe Kermani, Bycast Inc.

February 19, 2003  - View from the Mountain: Innovation Across the Healthcare Market
Steven Huesing, Healthcare Management & Communications Canada

March 19, 2003 - Electronic Healthcare Record Solutions
Trevor Hodge, Sierra Systems Group and Sarah Graham, Orion Systems International

April 16, 2003 -Two Heads (and a Computer) are Healthier Than One:
Knowledge and Collaboration Tools from Drug Discovery to Patient Treatment
Martin Sumner-Smith, Open Text Corp.

May 21, 2003 - The Smart Systems for Health Agency: An Overview
Roger Girard, Smart Systems for Health Agency

June 18, 2003 - Canada’s Electronic Health Record Solution Architecture
Dennis Giokas, Canada Health Infoway Inc.

September 2001 - June 2002 Smarter Health Seminars: Value of IT in the Health System

September 26, 2001 - The Health System as a Distributed Information Organization
John Oliver, President and CEO, Halton Healthcare Services Corporation

October 31, 2001 - An Informationally (and Maybe Functionally) Impaired Health System
Dr. Jan Steiner, Senior Vice President, Park City Solutions, Ann Arbor Michigan

November 28, 2001 - The Macro- and Microeconomics of IT in Health:Evidence of Effectiveness
Dr. Craig Lehmann, Dean, School of Health Technology and Management, SUNY
Sponsored by Triple G Systems Group, Inc.

January 23, 2002 - Achieving a Clinical Dose of IT: How Much IT is Enough?
Dominic Covvey, Director, Education Program for Health Informatics Professionals (EPHIP)  and Adjunct Professor, Computer Science, University of Waterloo

February 20, 2002 - What can the IT-Enabled Health System Be and Do?
Dr. Bob Bernstein, Head, Medical Informatics Research Group,  Family Medicine, University of Ottawa

March 20, 2002 - CHIPPing Away: Federal Government Investment in Health IT
Jeannine Parent, Senior Program Analyst, Innovation and Investment Division, Office of Health and the Information Highway, Health Canada

April 17, 2002 - Project Outreach: Ontario-Based Tele-Psychiatry Project
Dr. Robbie Campbell, Director, Project Outreach, Scientist, Lawson Health Research Institute and Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry - University of Western Ontario

May 22, 2002 - Healthcare, Technology and Privacy: Challenges and Opportunities
Greg Keeling, Director - Strategic Planning and Technology, A/Executive Assistant to the Commissioner  Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario

June 19, 2002 - Smarter Health - Pulling It Together
A Panel Discussion