Ian McKillop

Managing health information

An incredible amount of data is collected every day about patients and their interactions with the health system. Once we have the data, how do we act on it? How do we ensure that the right people have the right data at the right time? How do we communicate best-practices information from hospital to hospital? It is all about effectively managing the flow of information and that is Ian McKillop’s specialty.

“I’m fascinated by the field of information management”, says Ian. “Finding ways to help decision-makers make better decisions and then building the systems and technology to support that happening.”

Ian helps lead one of the largest publicly available, hospital performance improvement projects in the world. The data, collected from healthcare facilities and patients across Ontario, provides clinicians and administrators with best-practices information at the touch of a fingertip. The information can be used to identify examples of excellence in care and management that can be copied by others in the health care system.

Another project empowers hospitals with software that uses locally held data to monitor performance and demonstrate accountability. “We’ve taken a leadership position in developing innovative information management solutions,” states Ian. “We’re helping our system work smarter and provide better care. It’s very exciting.”

University of Waterloo Mathematics, Annual Report 2005