Christine Plaza, BDes

Manager, Strategic Design & Knowledge Translation
Interim Manager, Innovation

Biography

With over 12 years of experience, Christine is passionate about the intersection of human-centred design and health to improve systems, services, programs and experiences for patients and providers.

In her current role at the Institute for Better Health, Christine is responsible for developing and managing a department that is focused on using human centred design to create innovative solutions that address the needs of patients and providers across the hospital and community. Using end-to-end design approaches, Christine engages with stakeholders across the system to understand needs, identify problems, create and iteratively test ideas, implement and measure solutions, and share new knowledge.

Christine has collaborated on projects with Phillips, Hallmark, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine. As a design advocate and thought leader, Christine has led and supported several initiatives at Trillium Health Partners and the University Health Network, including awareness campaigns to increase flu vaccination and hand hygiene rates, web-based applications to collect patient and provider feedback, and system-based engagements and co-design activities to guide the development of new health programs and services.

Christine is an invited lecturer at the University of Toronto and has led several sessions on human-centred design approaches and their applicability to health care. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe and Toronto Star.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION INTERESTS /
KEY WORDS