Speakers

He also sits on the Education Committee of the Association of Healthcare Emergency Preparedness Professionals for the past 3 years and is a founding member and one of their first Canadian based members of the association.

Andrew is very active in trying to bring together healthcare emergency managers in Canada, helping to curate and facilitate online platforms for the Canadian Hospital Emergency Preparedness Alliance.

Andrew has completed two Masters Degrees. His first was in History at the University of Waterloo, and has his second degree in Disaster & Emergency Management from York University.

She has worked in the field of Emergency Management since first beginning her career at the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Upon her return to Canada in 2008, she held progressive roles in organizations of higher education and regional government. As she continued to develop her skills and knowledge in Emergency Management her focus changed to the area of Healthcare Emergency Preparedness

In 2013, Kassondra joined Halton Healthcare, during an exciting time of change for the organization. She was directly involved in Emergency Management planning related to the completion of three major capital redevelopment projects, including the construction of a 1.6 million square foot hospital in Oakville and a significant expansion at Milton District Hospital that effectively tripled the size of the hospital.

Kassondra is passionate about fire safety and a dedicated advocate of both personal and work preparedness. She has a Masters of Forensic Science from The George Washington University and is a DRI International Certified Business Continuity Professional.

His nation building work led him back to Afghanistan, where he became Chief of Staff to the President and delivered a strategy for governance, infrastructure, agriculture and education. In Canada, he was responsible for the federal government emergency response to the Ontario Ice storm – Ottawa Region (1998) and was seconded to the City of Winnipeg as the Chief of Staff to coordinate federal emergency resources and personnel during the Winnipeg Floods (1997). While serving as the acting Base Commander of Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, he led the successful response for Ottawa Valley Region Y2K planning and preparedness. Additionally, he was responsible for emergency, crisis and mass casualty preparedness exercises at Atomic Canada Chalk River Laboratories and the Pembroke General Hospital. 

In 2015, Bernie returned to Canada to design and implement the Syria refugee program, where he was responsible for safely welcoming 67,000 Syrian refugees and 1500 Yazidi women and children fleeing violence. His Cape-Breton roots uniquely placed him to author the Atlantic immigration pilot, heralded by the Wall Street Journal and the Economist for generating $250 million annually in GDP Growth, a critical pillar for Canada’s ascension into the top 10 global economies in 2020.  Most recently, while in East Timor conducting leadership training and executive coaching, Bernie answered the call to return to Ontario as a Senior Advisor on the COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, which coordinated the successful roll-out of over 30 million vaccinations across Ontario, now rated top three in the world.

In 2021, she took on the portfolio for Emergency Preparedness for the hospital.

Andrea is passionate about health care quality improvement and strategic project management and brings that lens to her approach with the overhaul and renewal of the Emergency Preparedness Program at SickKids.

Helen Feng is currently the chair of the Emergency Preparedness Committee (EPC) at Oak Valley Health, recently rebranded from Markham Stouffville Hospital (MSH). She maintains and coordinates emergency preparedness activities for MSH and Uxbridge Hospital (UXB). Before her current role, Helen led mass casualty planning at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC). Tackling complex problems through multi-disciplinary stakeholder engagement and coordination is among Helen’s greatest strengths. As a former Emergency Department Patient Administrative Associate (PAA) in a Trauma Centre, Helen brings a unique frontline perspective to all of the work she leads. Helen’s approach to policy and plan development is centered on developing rational, best practice models that meet the needs of end-users and the patients they serve.

Simon has been a Registered Nurse since 1995 and joined Niagara Health in October 2020. He has been instrumental in the roll out of new and refreshed emergency preparedness policies and procedures; the update of the Emergency Code system and the Code of the Month training program; standardization of Fire Life Safety training across the organization; as well as facilitating successful emergency drills, and full scale exercises.

Prior to his current role, Simon worked in Pre-hospital care as a Primary Care Paramedic, a Staff Nurse and Clinical Leader in the Emergency Department, and various roles in Occupational Health and Safety. Simon holds an Honours Diploma in Nursing from Seneca College as well as an Honours Graduate Certificate in Occupational Health Nursing from Mohawk College. He is currently working towards a Bachelor’s Degree in Adult Education at Brock University.

Simon is passionate about health and safety and believes that every employee, patient, and visitor deserves to go home to their family. When not working, Simon spends his time with his beautiful wife, three children and his dog in Burlington, Ontario.

Josh holds a bachelors degree in Disaster and Emergency Management from York University and has spent his entire career working in the emergency management field. Prior to joining Niagara Health, Josh spent 3.5 years working with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, where he also led Business Continuity Planning and was tasked with managing the building and ministry-specific fire safety and security planning.

A few proud accomplishments throughout Josh’s career include;

• Supporting the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs track and distribute Rapid Antigen Test’s to Indigenous communities during the height of COVID-19.
• Led the implementation of Video Remote Interpretation (VRI) at five hospital sites to expand interpretation capabilities between patients and hospital staff.

He holds an Associate Certificate in Emergency Management from the Justice Institute of BC, a Fellowship in Global Journalism from the University of Toronto and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Disaster Medicine at the Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health. He is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UBC, where he teaches residents and medical students. Fong has written articles on healthcare and disaster management in publications such as CBC, the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine and The Conversation.

 The emergency code work includes revising policies to ensure the current situation is accounted for, and training on the codes for all staff is completed. She is responsible for three types of training currently, unit level scenarios, leadership tabletops and scenarios, and yearly code testing for code Red.

Siobhan is dedicated to furthering the emergency preparedness work at MGH, by working with different in-patient areas to develop Business Continuity, hospital wide emergency simulations, and by promoting the importance of downtime preparations.

Cheryl holds a Bachelor of Nursing degree from York University, a Master of Nursing degree from Toronto Metropolitan University and has successfully completed her certification in Simulation Instructor Training and Advance Critical Event Debriefing from Harvard University’s Center for Medical Simulation. Cheryl is passionate about change management, quality and safety, and continuing education. In 2016, Cheryl was the recipient of the Nelson Mandela Humanitarian award, as recognition for her dedication to clinical excellence and change management within the community. Cheryl shares her expertise with the East Toronto community by volunteering with a variety of charitable and non for profit organizations.

As part of his responsibilities at the IWK, Phil is involved in leading, training, and exercising the Hospital Based Reception of Contaminated Patients program.

Phil was part of the project team that successfully developed and implemented an enhanced provincial ambulance service for the province of Prince Edward Island (Island EMS) and was principal co-writer of the plan for an enhanced ambulance service for the province of New Brunswick (Ambulance New Brunswick).

Phil is married to Judy (his personal patient) and when not working, is a featured soloist in Nova Scotia’s Provincial Men’s Choir, Nova Voce. He’s also released two CDs of his own music, and considers his happy place sitting at the piano…