Dr. Carolyn Steele Gray was appointed a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Implementing Digital Health Innovation in Fall 2021. She is a Scientist at the Science of Care Institute with an appointment with the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health. She also holds an Associate Professor (status) with the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Steele Gray’s research program focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of a novel digital health tool for use in person-centred models of integrated community-based primary health care for patients with complex care needs. Noteworthy, Dr. Steele Gray is leading a Canadian Institutes for Health Research Operating Grant ($1.6 million) entitled Digital Bridge: Using Technology to Support Patient-centered Care Transitions from Hospital to Home (Digital Bridge).
Situated at Sinai Health in partnership with Trillium Health Partners, the Digital Bridge study involves co-designing, implementing, and evaluating a person-centered digital health technology to support patients and family care partners with complex care needs through care transitions from hospital to home. This technology enabled solution is expected to improve patient and family experience with care transitions and health-related quality of life, increase clinician efficiency in care coordination, standardize care transition practices across organizational boundaries, and reduce unnecessary readmission or emergency department visits post-discharge, leading to cost savings.
Recognized internationally, Dr. Steele Gray has presented on panels at the International Conference for Integrated Care, the Danish Digital Health Society for Digital Health’s Annual General Assembly, and has been a guest speaker for the Open Digital Health international network and Health Canada on Digital Health Interoperability. She also is a Senior Associate with the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), where she co-leads a Special Interest Group in Digital Health and Data Enabling Integrated Care, serves on the executive committee for IFIC-Canada. Dr. Steele Gray has served on multiple Scientific Committees for the International and North American conferences on Integrated Care. She is also the Canadian lead for Open Digital Health, non-profit organization seeking to drive accessibility and spread of digital health solutions to improve care delivery, and the co-lead and co-founder of the International Goal-Oriented Care Learning Collaborative, an academic consortium seeking to advance adoption of person-centred goal-oriented care.
