Physician, Principal Investigator

Ramana Appireddy is an Assistant Professor of Neurology in the Department of Medicine at Queen’s University and a stroke neurologist at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre. In 2018, he set up the virtual care program in the Stroke prevention clinic at KHSC. He is passionate about improving understanding, access and uptake of virtual care. His research is focused on understanding patient experience with virtual care, specifically the facilitators and challenges to access and uptake of virtual care. He regularly partners with patients, caregivers, and patient organizations in his research by adopting principles of the strategy for patient oriented research (SPOR).

Researcher and Study Coordinator, Study Team Member

Sophy Chan-Nguyen is a health researcher. She received her Ph.D. in Health Promotion at Queen’s University in 2021. She is a research associate in the Centre for Studies in Primary Care in the Department of Family Medicine at Queen’s University. Her areas of study include patient experiences of care, virtual care, health care reform, primary care, global health, housing insecurity, and grassroots resistance. Sophy has worked in Brazil and Canada to better understand how communities experience health and housing inequities and the importance of community collaboration as a means toward health and housing justice. 

In this project, Sophy provides guidance into research methodologies and carries out the research activities in collaboration with the study team. She believes that patient experiences and knowledge should be at the centre of research efforts as a means to equitable health care reform. She is grateful for the opportunity to learn from the patients, caregivers, and family members who generously share their knowledge and time towards the project.

Graduate Student and Research Support, Study Team Member

Veronica Lloyd serves as research operations support at Kingston General Health Research Institute, and has worked in various facets of health research and education over the last decade. In addition to helping this project from an operations perspective, Veronica explored patient engagement in research as part of a Master of Clinical Science degree. The patient partnered approach significantly contributed to the deliverables of Veronica’s educational work and was featured in presentations for incoming cohorts to the Masters program. Taking from this experience as graduate student, it is Veronica’s goal to continue her engagement with patient partnered work within KGHRI to support future development of patient-important resources and educational material.

Patient Research Liaison, Study Team Member

As the Clinical Research Liaison Officer at Kingston General Health Research Institute, Lisa McAvoy provides support and advice to research teams conducting hospital based research. For many years she has worked closely with research participants and their family members, administering assessments and interviews and trying to ease any participant burden during research appointments. Over the last three years, she has focused on promoting and advocating for patient engagement in research.

Patient Partner, Study Team Member

Angela Morin has been partnering with health care professionals as a Patient and Family Experience Advisor at Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC- formerly Kingston General Hospital) since November 2011 and has recently moved into a leadership role helping to evolve and expand on KHSC’s commitment to patient and family centred care as the Lead for Patient and Family Centred Care.

She was a Core Faculty Member and Coach for the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement’s Collaborative “Partnering with Patients and Families for Quality Improvement.” and The Better Together E-Collaborative and Campaign before joining CFHI in the newly created Patient Partner role in 2017.  She was a member of Health Quality Ontario’s Board of Directors and is one of the founding members of the Patient Advisor Network (PAN), a community of patient and family advisors from across Canada.

Angela believes partnering with patients and families in health care quality improvement results in innovative, better and sustainable results.  Angela’s personal experiences as a patient, family member and while supporting a close friend through her breast cancer journey, continues to motivate her to bring the patient and family voice to healthcare.

Patient Advisor – Kingston Health Sciences Centre, Study Team Member

After a career in healthcare spanning 4 decades, as an occupational therapist and an educator at Queen’s University, Anne’s personal experiences as a patient and caregiver led her to become a Patient Advisor at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre in 2017. A current member of its Patient Family Advisory Council, Anne also sits on the hospital’s Virtual Health Steering Committee, Accreditation Task Force, and Mental Health Program Council. Anne joined Dr. Appireddy in 2019 to collaborate as a Patient Partner in virtual care research. At the community level, she sits on the Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington Roadmap to Wellness Task Force and co-chairs its Family Engagement Working Group. Anne is a Patient Partner with Canada Health Infoway and contributed to Digital Health Canada’s Virtual Care Maturity Model and Virtual Care Certificate Program. She is a member of the Virtual Care Expert Advisory Group on Patient-Reported Experience Measures with the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Anne strives to be a positive agent of change within the healthcare system, encouraging healthcare providers to offer compassionate, responsive, accessible care and caring in partnership with patients, caregivers, and families.

Researcher, Study Team Member

Dr. Lee is an Assistant Professor in Kinesiology and Health and Gender Studies at Queen’s University. As an emerging scholar and the lead of the In Situ Lab, Lee’s research aims to provide solutions to varying environmental and social issues (e.g., climate change, structural racism, gender issues) while bridging social theories (e.g., intersectionality) and quantitative methodology to promote population health.

Patient / Caregiver Advisory Group

The patient advisory group members have been involved in this project since 2020. They participated in focus groups to identify patient priorities for virtual care delivery, tools and resources to support patient education around virtual care and provide input and feedback on the tools and resources developed during this project. The project team acknowledge the contributions of the members of the patient advisory group and sincerely thank them for their time and input.  Some of the members of the patient advisory groups include

• Michele Brandt
• Fanny Monk. Ret. Health Care Worker, Kamloops.
• Bill and Carole Ann Alloway
• Amy Hanes
• Michele Langlois