![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Friday, September 17, 2004
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[Covvey]](/images/2004/0917covvey.gif)
VIPs hit campus yesterday to celebrate the creation of
the NSERC/Agfa Executive Industrial Research Chair in Health Informatics,
to be held by UW biology professor Dominic Covvey (pictured, left,
at yesterday's event).
"We are facing new challenges in our health care system, requiring new approaches and new responses," said local MP Andrew Telegdi, speaking the day after the day after the conclusion of the federal-provincial conference on health care and financing. "Governments are looking to the potential of information systems and communications to improve our health care delivery. The new chairholder is an expert in health informatics and its many applications. His research in workflow applied to health care delivery should help us achieve our goals."
Agfa HealthCare and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada will each contribute $500,000 over five years to the project.
"Agfa is pleased to be an active research partner with the University of Waterloo and the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research where the work is based," said Michael Green, vice-president of Agfa Healthcare, at yesterday's ceremonies in the Davis Centre. "This Chair will help create a synergistic collaboration between the university, Agfa and local hospitals, to the ultimate benefit of all Canadians."
Covvey, the new chairholder, is the founding director of the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research. Established in June 2003, WIHIR is a multi-disciplinary collaboration which brings together more than 50 researchers from 17 departments and schools at UW to address information-related challenges in health and the health care system.
"With this Chair, WIHIR will be able to undertake major, collaborative, trans-disciplinary programs in fundamental health informatics research in areas like health care workflow, business process management and the economics of health information systems," Covvey said. "Business process modelling and workflow research involves computer-based techniques for representing and supporting human work processes. Our objective in this research is to enable an efficient and effective health care system."
Executive Industrial Research Chairs are awarded to outstanding professionals from industry or other sectors who have a strong track record in conducting and managing R&D at a senior level. "In supporting this Chair, NSERC is recognizing Professor Covvey's past achievements and helping him make further contributions to Canada's health care system," said Tom Brzustowski, president of NSERC.
![[Sarah Harmer at Humanities on Saturday night]](http://www.feds.ca/graphics/sarahharmer.jpg)
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![[Together, full length]](/images/2004/0920stmikes.gif)
As with many employers of UW co-op students,
the director of the engineering department, Michael Keen, was
once a UW co-op student himself. Keen offered Ron Saporta, a
former UW co-op student at St. Michael's, the full time position
of project engineering co-ordinator. Saporta now hires UW co-op
students. "It is almost like we are a third generation co-op
program," he says.
Saporta understands the true value of the co-op system of study and the importance of offering students rewarding jobs. "I had a wonderful time when I was a co-op student at St. Michael's. I liked it so much that I wanted to return full time. We don't just offer paper pushing positions. It is a real position where you get real work and real values."
When asked why he continually hires UW students, Saporta says, "We've received a positive return from every UW student we have ever had." He trusts his co-op students with as many as 120 projects at any given time. "They could be involved in projects where the budget is up to 1 million dollars. The projects become the co-op students' responsibility from beginning to end."
Julia Kossowski, 3A systems design engineering, and Richard Jong, 1B mechanical engineering (pictured together, above), were on co-op at St. Michael's in winter 2004. Kossowski played a large part in the creation of a paperless patient file environment in the hospital. "They wanted all their x-rays to be digital. They were eliminating all the dark rooms in the hospital and equipping every room that might need to look at an x-ray with a computer and the necessary electrical work. I was the liaison between the hospital and the contractors. I showed the contractors what, where and when it needed to be done, and the project came in under budget."
Jong's main responsibility was the renovation of the emergency command centre where hospital staff would go to discuss emergency procedures in the event of a blackout. "They wanted it done in three weeks, so I finished it in two just in case anything went wrong," says Jong.
The two students agree that St. Michael's is an excellent place to work. St. Michael's continues to hire UW co-op students for a reason. Keen says, "We find Waterloo students have the practical experience skills to handle many diverse, complex projects."
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Clubs Days continue today, 10 to 4, Student Life Centre.
Business students at Wilfrid Laurier University practice presentation before Students in Free Enterprise World Cup championship in Spain, 11:45, KPMG Atrium, WLU. Centre for International Governance Innovation lecture, Antonia Maioni, McGill University, "Who Decides Who Cares? Why Health Governance Matters", 12 noon, CIGI, 57 Erb Street West. 'Three Days Grace' play Federation Hall tonight, $20 Feds in advance, $25 at door, 888-4042. GradStock IV, performers at the Graduate House, noon to midnight, grad students free, others $5. Programming contest in preparation for ACM competition, Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. and again September 25, details online. Terry Fox Run Sunday nationally; local run 1 p.m., Bechtel Park, Waterloo; UW team being organized by Randall Skelton, chemistry department, skelton@uwaterloo.ca. Hamilton-area alumni tailgate party before Tiger-Cats game Sunday, details online. TB screening clinic, Monday and Tuesday 4 to 7 p.m., Health Services. 'Benefits of Yoga' interactive session sponsored by Employee Assistance Program, Wednesday 12 noon, PAC Studio 2, register with Johan Reis, health services. Kitchener Rangers hockey, outing for faculty and staff sponsored by UW Recreation Committee, September 24, tickets on sale until today, details online. Sports this weekend: cross-country invitational, Saturday 1 p.m., north campus; football vs. York, Saturday 2 p.m., University Stadium (and on The Score television); soccer vs. Queen's Saturday, north campus, men 1 p.m., women 3 p.m.; men's tennis, Saturday vs. McMaster and Western. Out of town: baseball at Western tomorrow; field hockey tournament at Carleton all weekend; men's rugby at Western tomorrow; women's rugby at Toronto Sunday; women's tennis at McMaster. |
"Last year," says David Seljak, director of the Centre, "we had an incredible season with speakers such as Karen Armstrong (author of The History of God), Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, Cynthia Mahmood, and Preston Manning. This year promises to be just as exciting! Later in the season we'll have internationally celebrated theologians, Sallie McFague and Douglas John Hall as well as important political figures such as Roy Romanow and Hans von Sponeck, former director of the Food-for-Oil program in Iraq."
![[Somerville]](http://www.web.ca/~margcent/janet%20somerville.JPG)
But things begin with
the 2004-2005 Somerville Lecture on Christianity and Communications,
under the title "The Grace of Mutual Respect". The speaker is
Janet Somerville (right), daughter of
Catholic
journalist Henry Somerville, for whom the lecture series is named.
Says publicity for tonight's talk: "Are Roman Catholics (and Christians) fighting a culture-war amongst themselves? Janet Somerville argues that in a culture of wrenching change, Roman Catholics (liberal, conservative, and radical) need to hang in together with faithful patience. Indeed the same is true of all Christians, along with the friends they gratefully discover in other faiths.
"Janet Somerville was, until 2002, the General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches (the first Roman Catholic, and the first woman, to be appointed to that post). For most of the 1990s, she had been associate editor of the independent bi-weekly newspaper Catholic New Times. Previously, she was co-ordinating producer of the award-winning CBC radio program Ideas. Somerville has received two honorary doctorates (Queen's Theological College, Kingston, and Regis College, Toronto). She was awarded the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 1999. In 2004, she was made a member of the Order of Canada."
She will give the same lecture October 12 at the University of Toronto's Newman Centre Chapel.
The speaker will be introduced tonight by Joe Sinasac, editor of the Catholic Register and biographer of Henry Somerville.
CAR