Health Futures

Dr. Catherine Burns is the Chair in Human Factors in Health Care Systems and leads the University of Waterloo’s health initiatives. She is an expert in human-centred approaches to the design and implementation of advanced health-care technologies.

Burns also heads Waterloo's Transformative Health Technologies initiative, a collaboration spanning all faculties and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. We asked her how we can redesign our health systems to create better patient outcomes and more equitable access to care.

The Pharmasave Business Competition awards a third-year Waterloo School of Pharmacy student team a $5,000 prize for an innovative business model in the field of pharmacy.

“Every year, the Pharmasave Business Competition proves pharmacists can be entrepreneurs. Our course and the competition are unique to the School and provide students with the opportunity to practice the skills of entrepreneurship while interacting with the robust start-up ecosystem in our community,” says Dean Pacey, adjunct lecturer at the School of Pharmacy.

Dr. Nikolas Knowles, a researcher in Kinesiology and Health Sciences, is studying a new imaging technology to assess shoulder osteoarthritis. Called dual-energy computed tomography (DECT), it can detect changes in multiple tissues, not just cartilage, which has the potential to change how medical imaging is used to quickly and cost-effectively diagnose early osteoarthritis and assess treatment options.

A University of Waterloo teaching lab is helping the medtech community in southwestern Ontario make great strides in their medical research. The Faculty of Health’s Human Anatomy Laboratory, which is housed in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, offers the perfect location for surgeons to test procedures on cadaver donors.