New course features health care innovators and leaders

Image L to R: Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, Zahra Ebrahim and Sophia Ikura.

Introduction to the Landscape of Health Design in Canada is a new course from OCAD University’s School of Continuing Studies, providing an overview of the Canadian health care sector and the role of design within it.

The four-week online, synchronous course takes place every Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m., from October 2 to 23. It will feature health care industry innovators and leaders as guest speakers, including Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, Zahra Ebrahim and Sophia Ikura.

The course is led by instructor Luz Paczka Giorgi, a recent alum of OCAD U’s Design for Health graduate program and prominent health designer and researcher.

“This course is in a suite of new programs focusing on design-based thinking, strategy and sectoral innovation,” says Meichen Waxer, Program Development Specialist. “OCAD U is expanding access and flexibility for learners to benefit from the excellence and cutting-edge learning opportunities within design.”

The remaining suite of new courses will launch in winter 2025.

Register today at ocadu.ca/continuingstudies. Learn more about the Design for Health Master of Design program at ocadu.ca/designforhealth.

ABOUT THE GUEST SPEAKERS

Dr. Jennifer Zelmer 

Dr. Jennifer Zelmer is the inaugural President and CEO of Healthcare Excellence Canada, an organization created in 2020 through the amalgamation of the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement (CFHI) and Canadian Patient Safety Institute to achieve safer, higher quality and more coordinated patient-partnered health care.

Dr. Zelmer’s long-standing commitment to improving health care quality and safety, as well as expertise in scaling innovations that deliver better outcomes, helped create the organization with an expanded capacity to improve health care for everyone in Canada.

She joined CFHI as its President and CEO in September 2018. She has been a C.D. Howe Research Fellow for several years and is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Victoria, as well as a member of several health-related advisory committees and boards.

Zahra Ebrahim

Zahra Ebrahim is a public interest designer and strategist, focused on shifting power to people who are typically underrepresented in institutions and systems. Her work has focused on deep, community-led approaches to policy, infrastructure and service design.

Prior to this role, she built and led Doblin Canada (Deloitte’s Human-Centred Design practice), focusing on engaging diverse sets of stakeholders to use human-centred design to address complex organizational and industry challenges.

In her early career, Ebrahim led one of Canada’s first social design studios, working with communities to co-design towards better social outcomes and leading some of Canada’s most ambitious participatory infrastructure and policy programs.

She has taught at OCAD U and MoMA and is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. She is the Vice-Chair of the Canadian Urban Institute, and the Board Chair for Park People.

Sophia Ikura

Sophia Ikura is the founder and Executive Director of Health Commons, a leading organization dedicated to addressing health disparities by combining the tools of a diverse set of disciplines from epidemiology to service design and political science to bring community-driven solutions into the health policy space.

As the Senior Director of Strategy and Community Engagement for the Toronto Regional Health Authority (formerly the Local Health Integration Network), Ikura was instrumental in engaging health system leaders and diverse communities across a population of 1.2 million and a budget of $4.4 billion in health care investments.

Her efforts informed strategic health system planning, bringing population health management approaches to help address equity gaps across the diverse communities of Toronto.

Her experience includes serving as a senior advisor to the premier of Ontario and three health ministers over a five-year period.