Mark Murray, MD, MPA, Mark Murray & Associates

Barbara Boushon, RN, BSN, Mark Murray & Associates

Alberta's Faculty
AIM has invested significant resources in the identification and development of physicians and health leaders as faculty. This Alberta faculty has completed a guided faculty development process and has worked closely with Mark Murray and Associates.

Hilary Adams, MD, has been a QI physician for the Calgary Health Region (CHR) Department of Family Medicine since May 2002. She was practicing in the Deer Run Clinic, but left the clinic in January 2007 and has been doing locums since then. Hilary has been involved in various QI initiatives in CHR including running the Calgary team in IHI Collaborative on Access and Efficiency in Clinical Office. Hilary audited the first AIM collaborative in Calgary. She is also national faculty for Safer Healthcare Now! for medication reconciliation (lead physician for CHR team).

June Austin, RN, is a Clinical Process Advisor and Project Lead for Toward Optimized Practice (TOP) – a provincial program whose mission is to foster a culture of continuous quality improvement among Alberta physicians and the teams with whom they work. A 22 year career as an RN and consultant has provided her with experience in clinical care, research, administration, program development, education, clinical/process improvement, and project leadership. June has been involved in the delivery of improvement collaboratives and facilitation in Alberta for almost four years. She is currently the lead representative and liaison for TOP to Alberta AIM.

Arvelle Balon-Lyon, RN, BN, CDE, has over 20 years of combined nursing experience with a focus on Chronic Disease Management and Prevention and has been leading health innovation for over 10 years. Her focus is on the creation of new service delivery models that are based on program integration, operational efficiency, and client centered care. Arvelle specializes in promoting a shared leadership approach, in recognizing and leveraging existing program strengths, and in supporting the development of the emerging Improvement Facilitator role to help teams be successful in their tests and spread of changes.

Arvelle has been instrumental in the promotion of Health Care Improvement Process and Principles since 2005, where she planned and participated in improvement collaboratives with Mark Murray and Associates (MMA) within Chinook Health and the Chinook Primary Care Network, and subsequently joined MMA as Faculty to support a Manitoba Access Collaborative in Winnipeg. Arvelle has recently joined the Toward Optimized Practice Program as Assistant Program Director, whose core mandate includes the spread of improvement and evidence based practice.

Mirella Chiodo is the Informatics Coordinator for the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta and her responsibilities include managing the Departmental IT needs, Electronic Medical Records solutions for the five Academic clinics as well as leading new initiatives in the way of e-learning. She is also responsible for leading the spread and sustainability of AIM within the Departmental Academic teaching clinics and to all of the 2nd year residents.  Prior to that, Mirella worked for Capital Health for 25 years beginning with a Laboratory background and eventually spending her last 20 years at the RAH Family Medicine Centre as the Business Manager and Project Coordinator for the physicians group.  Mirella also sits on the POSP Clinical Advisory Committee and has been a physician resource for POSP for the last six years.

Janet Craig, MD, has practiced as a family physician at the Glenora Medical Clinic for 17 years. She is a Clinical Lecturer in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta. She is looking forward to being involved with the Calgary AIM 4 Collaborative.

Tobias Gelber, MD, completed a two month rural rotation in Pincher Creek as a mandatory part of family medicine residency and moved there after finishing.  He practises family medicine and GP Anaesthesia.  Dr. Gelber has also practiced anaesthesia in Cardston, Crowsnest Pass, Fernie, and Yellowknife.

Dr. Gelber became involved with practice redesign in November of 2005 and is currently the physician leader of practice redesign in Pincher Creek..

Carmen Gingles, MD, CCFP, is a family physician practicing in urban family practice for 10 years. She is an associate clinical professor at the University of Alberta and teaches undergraduate medical students as well as residents. Carmen also practices in an inner-city clinic for disadvantaged prenatal patients.

Jana Holden, MD, is a family physician practicing at the Leduc Community Hospital and Griffiths Medical Clinic for over 10 years. She is the AMA representative to PCIC (Primary Care Initiative Committee) and Health Outcome Indicator Working Group and a past participant in the Alberta North collaborative.

Marcia Kashani, RN, BScN, MBA,, IA, has over twenty years of nursing experience in acute care, Home Care and in a family medicine teaching clinic. For the past 3 years, Marcia has been involved in the development and implementation of Primary Care Networks in the Capital Health region. This includes working with family physicians to develop business plans, recruit key personnel and implement programs. Over the past 2 years , her work has expanded to include the Primary Care Improvement Project, now called AIM. Marcia has also completed the Improvement Advisor program through the Institute of Healthcare Improvement.

Chris Mayhew BA, BSW, RSW, IA, is a Social Worker by training and currently works as Process Improvement Consultant with Alberta Health Services. He has been involved in the delivery of improvement collaboratives and facilitation of improvement teams in the Edmonton area since January 2007, and has a keen interest in developing and supporting the facilitator role within Alberta AIM. Chris has participated in quality improvement training through the Health Quality Council of Saskatchewan and more recently has completed the IHI Breakthrough Series (2007) and Improvement Advisor Program (2009) with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Chris has worked in a variety of roles including child protection, geriatric case management, team facilitation and primary care management.

Adele Royer RN, BScN has over 23 years of nursing experience in acute, community & critical care (ICU), management, & as an advanced practice nurse in geriatric medicine.  Adele has worked for the past two years as a project coordinator/improvement facilitator with the Chinook Primary Care Network in Lethbridge. She strives to assist others to work towards system improvement within family practice, specialty programs as well as the Chinook Regional Hospital Flow Initiative. 

E.P. Schuster, M.D., C.C.F.P., F.C.F.P is an active Member of the Medical Staff of Caritas, Alberta Health Services and Capital Care group, practicing full service family medicine, (Obstetrics and ER work in the past). In addition, Dr. Schuster is the Medical Director for Primary Care, Capital Health and was Medical Director for the Critical Care Line (Capital Health). He is an associate professor in the department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta. A leader in quality care initiatives, Dr. Schuster was a founding member of the primary care networks in Alberta and was co-Chair of the Provincial Primary Care Initiative Committee for Health Regions. In addition, he is the current co-Chair of the (Regional) Provincial Physician on call committee (trilateral).

Doug Stich, BSc, is the Program Director of the Toward Optimized Practice (TOP), a quality improvement initiative supporting physicians and the teams with whom they work. TOP’s role is to develop and deliver services that engender best practices in the physician community and elsewhere in the health system.  Doug, a management consultant with special focus on behaviour change in healthcare, is responsible for program development, implementation and evaluation of outcomes.

Before joining the TOP program in 2004, Doug was the program coordinator for the Pharmaceutical Information Network (PIN) at Alberta Wellnet.  Prior to that, Doug was the Director of Change Management for the SmartHealth organization in Winnipeg, Manitoba.    Doug has a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree from the University of Manitoba.