Innis

The temperatures may be dropping, but the number of events at the University of Toronto’s three campuses remains high as we enter the final stretch of 2019.

Here’s some of what's taking place this month:

Nov. 1

Celebrate Diwali on campus with U of T’s Hindu Student Council. A pooja (prayer ritual) followed by a casual social will be held at the Multi-Faith Centre to mark the Hindu festival of lights.

Kick off November with U of T Scarborough’s drama society at their fall open mic night. Talented students and faculty will be acting, singing, dancing, performing comedy and more. There will be snacks and refreshments.

Come to the U of T Scarborough Library Makerspace for a zine workshop with the Scarborough Studies Collective and explore the stories of Scarborough though a creative lens. Workshops will take place on Nov. 1 and 8.

Nov. 4

Convocation ceremonies are taking place this week at Convocation Hall. Visit our Convocation 2019 hub for more information and stories.

The Fields Institute is organizing its 2019 Fields Medal Symposium at the Isabel Bader Theatre. Brazilian mathematician and 2014 Fields medallist Artur Avila will deliver the public lecture. Admission is free and open to the public.

U of T Scarborough’s artist talk series continues at the Doris McCarthy Gallery. Filipino-Canadian artist Patrick Cruz will be speaking about his work, which tackles issues of decolonization and globalization.

Nov. 6

The U of T Scarborough cricket club is hosting an India vs. Pakistan match at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre. The game will also be livestreamed.

Nov. 7

Visitors explore the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is opening its doors for its biannual open house. The library is the largest publicly accessible collection of rare books in Canada, with materials from as far back as the 16^th century.

See the opening of New Circadia, an installation at a new, 7,500-square-foot gallery in the lower level of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. The exhibition runs until April 20.

U of T’s Sexual & Gender Diversity Office is marking its 20^th anniversary at Hart House. The event will feature a panel discussion on LGBTQ+ communities, moderated by Lance McCready, associate professor of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, followed by a reception.

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is taking place from Nov. 7 to 15, showcasing films by filmmakers from Asia and the Asian diaspora around the world. Films will be screened at various locations throughout the city, including U of T's Isabel Bader Theatre and Innis Town Hall.

Former Liberal Party leader and writer Michael Ignatieff, the rector and president of Central European University in Budapest, will be speaking at the Munk School of Global Afffairs & Public Policy about populism and liberal democratic institutions. The event, which is sold out, will be livestreamed.

Nov. 8

The ancient Greek tragedy, The Oresteia, is being performed by Theatre Erindale at U of T Mississauga on Nov. 8 to 10 and 15 to 17. Tickets are $5 at the door.

Nov. 11

An orchestra plays during a Remembrance Day ceremony at U of T Scarborough (photo by Ken Jones)

It’s Remembrance Day and the U of T community will pause to reflect on the sacrifices that Canada’s veterans have made.

A service of remembrance will be held at Soldiers’ Tower on the St. George campus, followed by a reception at Hart House.
At U of T Mississauga, a ceremony will be held inside the Innovation Complex.
There will also be a ceremony at the Meeting Place at U of T Scarborough that will feature the U of T Scarborough concert band, concert choir and string orchestra.

Nov. 12

As part of Hart House’s 100^th anniversary, artist team Rebecca Belmore and Osvaldo Yero will be unveiling their public sculpture entitled waabidiziiyan doopwining at the Hart House Great Hall. The name means to see oneself at the table and the sculpture seeks to honour the past from an Indigenous perspective and to imagine the future. The work will be unveiled at the 100^th anniversary gala on Nov. 12 and the artists will host a discussion about their work on Nov. 13.

Nov. 13

Wendy Schmidt, the president of the Schmidt Family Foundation and the co-founder of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, will be delivering a keynote on issues relating to the ocean health as well as how scientific breakthroughs are helping restore our marine resources. Registration is free and the talk is taking place at the Health Sciences Building.

Explore the history of rap at Hip Hip 101 Café. Salman Rana, also known as YLook, will be leading a conversation on the role of faith in hip hop. The talk is taking place at U of T Mississauga’s Maanjiwe Nendamowinan Building and is presented by Hart House and the Centre for Student Engagement and Inter-Faith.

Nov. 14

Acclaimed poet, author and documentarian Dionne Brand will be delivering the 2019 Harold Innis Lecture at Innis College. Her talk, “To look again: Fragments, history, fiction,” will be followed by a discussion moderated by Marieme Lo, U of T associate professor and African studies program director.

Nov. 15

Catch the opening night of Hart House Theatre’s production of Portia’s Julius Caesar, which offers a feminist perspective of the classic Shakespearian tragedy. The play runs from Nov. 15 to 30. Tickets are $28 for adults, $20 for seniors and $15 for students.

Nov. 17

Hart House is pulling out all the stops for its centennial year. A concert series is being held throughout the school year to celebrate its 100^th anniversary. The Hart House Singers will be performing on Nov. 17, followed by the Hart House Chorus on Nov. 24 and the Hart House Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo on Nov. 25.

Nov. 18

As part of the Faculty of Arts & Science’s 2019 Wiegand Memorial Foundation Lecture, Cornell University professor and U of T alumnus Andrew Hicks will take you on a journey through the sounds of the cosmos, from the “hushed woosh of gravitational waves” to the big bang. The free lecture is taking place at 6 p.m. at the Campbell Conference Facility.

Nov. 19

With populism on the rise, Stephen Lewis will be delivering a keynote at Hart House to talk about global engagement in the age of Trump. Lewis has been a UN diplomat and the leader of the Ontario NDP. He’ll also be joined by CBC Radio’s Shelagh Rogers and journalist and activist Michele Landsberg. Admission is $10 and free for students with a TCard.

Nov. 20

Woodworth College is holding the annual Saul Goldstein Memorial Lecture. Anna Shternshis, a professor and director at U of T’s Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, will discuss how the Holocaust was documented through music.

Winter Market returns to U of T Scarborough. Local vendors will gather at the Meeting Place in front of the Science Wing and will be selling fresh produce and artisanal crafts.

Nov. 21

This Is War is a play that follows four Canadian soldiers who struggle to deal with the psychological toll from their service in Afghanistan. The play opens at U of T Mississauga’s Theatre Erindale on Nov. 21 and runs until the 24^th and again from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1.

Nov. 22

(photo by Drew Lesiuczok)

A ceremony will be held for the official opening of U of T Mississauga’s newest building, Maanjiwe Nendamowinan, which houses many humanities and social science departments. The building bears an Anishinaabemowin name that means “gathering of minds.”

Nov. 27

What’s fair in the age of #MeToo? Globe and Mail investigative journalist Robyn Doolittle will be at the Rotman School of Management talking about her new book, Had it Coming, which looks into the culture shifts that have come as a result of #MeToo.

Nov. 28

Is the future of meat plant-based? U of T’s Lisa Kramer will be delivering a talk om Brampton on the marketplace for meat alternatives as well as the groundbreaking technology being used to develop these products.

SeamlessMD: helping patients prep for surgery and recover faster

sgupta — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 08:58:10 +0000

SeamlessMD: helping patients prep for surgery and recover faster sgupta Fri, 04/10/2015 - 04:58

Brianna Goldberg

Author legacy

Brianna Goldberg

Creative Destruction Lab

Alumni

Features

Subheadline

New tech from alumni startup at hospital in the GTA

A mobile app and web platform from U of T medical and engineering grads is improving readiness and recovery for surgery patients at Toronto East General Hospital.

“SeamlessMD supports patients through surgery preparation and recovery with timely reminders, interactive care plans and self-management tools on tablets, smartphones and computers,” said Philip Chen, an engineering science alumnus and co-founder of SeamlessMD. “Our app pushes patient-generated data to healthcare providers in real time to monitor patient recovery remotely, which improves outcomes and lowers costs.” (Read more about SeamlessMD)

Chen met co-founders Joshua Liu, a Faculty of Medicine alumnus, and Willie Kwok, a University of British Columbia grad, as part of The Next 36 entrepreneurship program founded by Ajay Agrawal, professor of entrepreneurship and academic director at U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab accelerator.(Hear Liu talk about Seamless and The Next 36 on CBC Radio's Metro Morning.) (Read more about U of T's growing network of accelerators and entrepreneurship support, part of the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto)

Launched in 2012, SeamlessMD put co-founder Liu on the Forbes list 30 Under 30 in health care. The Financial Post headlined the startup as one that that “could save lives and tax dollars.”

Patients and healthcare teams are already using SeamlessMD – and seeing results. A pilot program at the Toronto East General Hospital, launched in December 2013, saw SeamlessMD support 70 patients through lung cancer surgery. The hospital says the platform resulted in fewer surgery cancellations and reduced patient anxiety.

“Our patients feel they’re continuing their relationship with their surgeons,” Mari Iromoto, director of improvement and innovation at Toronto East General, told Canadian Healthcare Technology. “And they’re absorbing the information better in this way.” (Read more from Canadian Healthcare Technology)

Brianna Goldberg writes about entrepreneurship for U of T News. She spoke with Chen about the startup's success.

You’re a few years in after launching your startup. How has the journey been?

It has been an exciting and humbling journey. We started as three students still in university and within four months we had convinced the chief medical officer of a top 20 U.S. academic medical centre to pilot our solution.

We started with the idea to create an app to help with patients recover after surgery. Since then we have expanded from an app to a cross-platform solution which supports the whole surgical pathway from preparation to recovery. We have also increased accessibility by building the first surgical patient engagement solution available on smartphones, tablets and computers.

Along our journey, we have been fortunate to be named as one of the top 20 most innovative companies in Canada by CIX and one of the Top 25 Up and Coming ICT Companies in Canada by Branham300. Now we are working with some of the leading hospitals and health systems in Canada and the U.S.

What motivates you to work with this startup?

Surgery is one of the most vulnerable experiences that a person can go through. We find it scary that in the 21st century, we still rely on paper instructions and human memory to get patients through this complicated journey.

At SeamlessMD, we want to improve the surgical journey to give every patient the best health outcomes for surgery. Together with healthcare providers, we want to leverage design, data and technology to enhance the patient experience, improve outcomes and lower costs.

What keeps us motivated is seeing the impact that we are making. Personally, I have interviewed many patients. They have said things like, “I had surgery before, and you walk in and you don’t know what is happening. Seamless told me what to do, and what not to do. It would be helpful for a lot of patients because you feel alone during surgery.”

They talked about their likelihood to miss pre-operative appointments without reminders from SeamlessMD and how they benefitted from the app's daily check-ins. One user said, “I liked the reminders every day to ensure recovery is going smoothly. It was like having someone check on you every day and made me feel more comfortable with the post op.”

We are extremely passionate about our mission. We believe it is inevitable that surgical care will be transformed with technology. For us, it’s just not happening soon enough.

How did U of T help you start SeamlessMD?

The University of Toronto has been a huge part of my own and SeamlessMD’s success.

Personally, I learned about entrepreneurship through Professor Emeritus Joseph Paradi’s entrepreneurship courses APS234 and APS432. It was the first time I found out a way for people to create the value that they wanted to see. Taking these learnings, I started Social Spark at the University of Toronto and Western University to cultivate a socially conscious and entrepreneurial spirit in youth through the creation of social ventures.

I then created SeamlessMD through the Next 36 with my co-founders Joshua Liu and Willie Kwok. The original idea was incubated at U of T’s Innis College, where we worked from for the first eight months of our company. We have also got tremendous support from U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab. Their advisors, called the G7 Fellows, and especially our mentor John Francis – chair of the board of directors of the SickKids Foundation – shared their wealth of knowledge from building successful companies and helped us focus on the important metrics for us to grow.

What’s next for your startup?

In 2014, we spent a lot of time building an amazing product and developing case studies which demonstrate we are improving patient engagement, satisfaction and outcomes. In 2015, we are focused on supporting an even wider range of surgeries, generating even better outcomes for our customers, and growing our company in Canada and in the U.S.

picpath

sites/default/files/2015-04-08-seamless.jpg