About Quality and Innovation

Our work focuses on strengthening the “building blocks” of high-performing primary care. First, engaging our leadership to support faculty to dedicate time for QI and build capacity among faculty, learners, and community clinicians to lead QI. Second, building an infrastructure to collect, report, and learn from practice data. Third, supporting our teams to function effectively to deliver front-line care. We strive to involve patients as partners in this work, disseminate our work in scholarly and lay forums, and collaborate with government and other stakeholders to have our work influence policy and practice.

Our strategic plan highlights opportunities for:

• Leadership — Building capacity in the current and future primary care workforce to improve quality of care.
• Evidence — Using and generating evidence on how to improve patient experience, improve health outcomes, and reduce cost in primary care.
• Dialogue — Working in partnership with government, clinicians, and patients to influence policy and practice provincially, nationally, and internationally.

Below is a visual of our workplan:

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Program Team

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Dr. Tara Kiran, MD, MSc, CCFP, FCFP 

Tara Kiran is the Fidani Chair in Improvement and Innovation and Vice-Chair Quality and Innovation at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto. Much of her research has focused on evaluating the impact of Ontario’s primary care reforms on quality of care. She has also developed a passion for quality improvement research including initiatives to improve cancer screening rates, measure and reduce care disparities, and support physicians to learn from data. She practices family medicine at the St. Michael’s Hospital Academic Family Health Team where she led the quality improvement program from 2011 to 2018. She is an Associate Scientist in the Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital and an Adjunct Scientist at ICES. She is also currently an Embedded Clinician Researcher with Health Quality Ontario where she leads a program of research to improve the experience of care for patients transitioning from hospital to home.

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Ms. Patricia O’Brien, RN MScCH

Trish O’Brien is the Manager, Quality and Innovation Improvement Program at the Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of Toronto. Trish has been a registered nurse for over thirty years with clinical and research experience in nephrology. Trish caught the quality improvement bug working in nephrology and brought that experience to primary care - first with the Quality Improvement and Innovation Partnership (QIIP) and subsequently with Health Quality Ontario (HQO). Trish has worked in the community, hospital and private industry sectors, and completed certification in quality improvement as an Improvement Advisor (IHI) and in LEAN/Six Sigma (Black Belt), in addition to holding a Master of Science in Community Health degree.

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Ms. Kirsten Eldridge, MPH

Kirsten Eldridge is the Quality and Innovation Program Administrative Assistant at the Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of Toronto.

Quality Improvement Program Directors 

Each of our 14 family medicine teaching sites has a QI Program Director who leads the practice and teaching of quality improvement. The Quality and Innovation leadership team meet together with the QI Program Directors eight times a year to discuss how to best advance Quality and Innovation in our department and beyond.