Aaron Blair

Aaron is a Professor of Project Management at Conestoga College. Aaron has numerous years of project delivery and leadership experience in the healthcare sector at local hospital and provincial levels. Aaron has direct experience delivering, participating or overseeing health initiatives that include: the Enterprise Master Person Index (EMPI), the Integrated Services for Children Information System (ISCIS) for children born with autism, Ontario Lab Information System (OLIS), Connecting GTA, Hospital Report Manager (HRM), Clinical Connect, and many other initiatives spanning Erie St. Clair, Soutwestern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area. Aaron holds a MBA with a project management focus, his Project Management Professional (PMP) credential from PMI and is a Certified Professional for Healthcare Information Systems in Canada (CPHIMS-CA), provided by the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS). In addition, Aaron both teaches and creates course material for the CPHIMS-CA credential preparation course as a faculty member of Digital Health Canada.

Articles by Aaron Blair

Don’t find yourself up the creek! Follow the value stream to ensure a successful HIS implementation.

Utilizing value stream mapping approaches during HIS/EMR projects help to create partnerships and co-design solutions that can yield improved outcomes and implementation success.

HIS/EMR replacement: Peeling the onion early to avoid tears

People familiar working on projects will understand the analogy of peeling the layers of an onion. Typically, when used in reference to projects, this refers to additional details being uncovered that weren’t initially considered. The onion analogy is apt because newly uncovered details rarely yield pleasant surprises, they usually bring tears. An HIS/EMR replacement is a significantly complex project. The magnitude of change goes beyond a single onion, it is more like a bunch, or in some cases a field. But there are ways to minimize the tears. It begins with organizational decomposition.

Take the ‘TripAdvisor’ approach to HIS/EMR replacement planning and read the reviews

Many people follow the stars, or equivalent, of services such as Yelp or TripAdvisor when planning to journey into the unknown. Organizations' approaches to HIS/EMR replacement projects or any technology projects should not differ. The trick is to build it into the overall plan to avoid it becoming a list of the inevitable.

Having end of life conversations shouldn’t be alien to Ontarians

A digital solution is needed to enhance Advanced Care Planning, the best tool that Ontarians have to ensure their end-of-life wishes are understood and respected.

Environmental health is here today – there’s no need to wait until the day after tomorrow

Hospital Information Systems are undergoing a transformation. As these legacy systems transition to their modern counterparts it opens a new opportunities for environmental health.

eHealth wisdom from an unlikely source: a late 80’s action movie.

There are great eHealth insights from the late great Patrick Swayze's acting career. By looking at the lesser known movie "Roadhouse" we explore one of the current gaps in Ontario's healthcare system, the personal health record (PHR).

Primary care: eHealth in Ontario’s final data frontier

When it comes to primary care data needs, more investment is required to build infrastructure, standards and integration

It may be 2016, but it’s still Y2K for many hospitals in Ontario and the eHealth Impact

Healthcare in Ontario is slowly moving into the information age, but it is encumbered with legacy systems commissioned in the mid-nineties. What should today's patients expect from their Ontario healthcare experience?

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