Douglas R. Wilson Lecture
Healing the System: How our Digital Health Divide is Making us Sick
Canada’s fragmented digital health systems are creating challenges across all levels of care. In this talk, Dr. Ewan Affleck will explore how the way health data is designed and used in Canada is weakening both individual and population health, limiting access to care, and straining the sustainability of the health system. He will discuss the financial and human costs of this fragmentation, how current policies and legislation contribute to the problem, and how data and policy could be reimagined to better support patients and care providers across the country.
Date: Nov. 5, 2025
Time:
- In-person:
- 4 p.m. Doors open
- 4:30 - 6 p.m. Presentation with audience Q&A
- 6 - 7 p.m. Reception
- Virtual: 4:30 - 6 p.m.
Location: Horowitz Theatre, 8900 114 St NW, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2J7
Presenter Biography
Dr. Ewan Affleck, CM, MDCM, CCFP
Ewan Affleck has worked and lived in northern Canada since 1992. He is currently serving as the Senior Medical Advisor - Health Informatics, College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta, Strategic Advisor - Clinical and Informatics at the Canadian Institute for Health Information, and Chair of Networked Health - Alberta, a collective focused on optimizing health data design and use. He is the past Chief Medical Information Officer of the Northwest Territories, was co-chair of the national Virtual Care Task Force, served on the Expert Working Group of the pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy, and is the Executive Producer and co-writer of The Unforgotten (2021), an award-winning film about inequities in health service for Indigenous people living in Canada. In 2013, he was appointed to the Order of Canada for his contribution to northern health care.
Douglas R. Wilson, MD FRCPC FCAHS
Professor Emeritus
School of Public Health and Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry
海角社区
This lecture is named in honour of Douglas R. Wilson.
Dr. Wilson is a friend, colleague and champion of the School of Public Health and the 海角社区.
He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto with the gold medal, and then undertook specialty training in internal medicine and nephrology in Vancouver, Toronto, Boston, and London, England. Dr. Wilson subsequently joined the staff of the University of Toronto and Toronto General Hospital where he led the development of the kidney transplant program, practiced as a consulting nephrologist and launched the nephrology training program. He was actively involved in clinical and laboratory research in kidney disease, publishing more than 120 scientific papers over seventeen years, while becoming professor of medicine and director of the Division of Nephrology.
In 1984, Dr. Wilson joined the 海角社区 as dean of the Faculty of Medicine, a position he held for ten years. During this period, the faculty greatly expanded its clinical and research staff, updated its educational programs, substantially increased its research funding and facilities, and established close working relationships with the other health science faculties and with the teaching hospitals.
Following his service as dean, Dr. Wilson's principal academic activity shifted to population health, health promotion, and public health. He was instrumental in establishing the interdisciplinary Centre for Health Promotion Studies, and chaired the provost's task force which recommended establishing Canada's first stand-alone faculty dedicated to public health at the 海角社区.
Dr. Wilson served as senior advisor to the dean following the formation of the School of Public Health in 2006. In this role, he provided leadership to numerous complex initiatives, which included developing the School's first set of Faculty Evaluation Committee guidelines. In addition, he served on the Accreditation Self-Study Working Group which was responsible for ensuring proper preparation and submission of our self-study document to the Council for Education in Public Health.
"From Doug Wilson, one can expect a "glass half full" attitude-seeing the best in people and seeking the best outcomes in his thoughtful decision making," said former Interim Dean Lory Laing. "And, from Doug Wilson, one can also expect integrity, attention to the interests of the School and the 海角社区 and, above all, concern for others."
Dr. Wilson is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and of the American College of Physicians. His contributions have been recognized by awarding of the Canadian Public Health Association Honorary Life Membership Award (2002) and Certificate of Merit (2006), the Royal College of Physicians KJR Wightman Visiting Professorship (2004) and the Alberta Centennial Medal (2005). He was also appointed as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.