Melanie Powis

Health Services Researcher and Implementation Scientist; quality improvement (QI) and implementation research methodologies to implement and pragmatically evaluate interventions to improve the quality of cancer care delivered to underserved patients; Embedding digital health technologies into routine cancer care: We are helping to translate innovations, such as remote monitoring and AI-driven clinical risk prediction models, to routine care while furthering the science/ theory of how to effectively embed these technologies in practice. Additionally, we are working to understand and optimize the role of patients and community partners in digital health technology implementation and evaluation. Improving the quality of cancer care for under-served patients: we are leveraging AI to evaluate the unmet supportive care needs of patients, to identify high-needs sub-populations and high-needs supports, and deliver tailored supportive care resources. In addition, we are utilizing community-based participatory research approaches to co-create, implement and evaluate interventions to address disparities in cancer care for underserved patient populations, including those who self-identify Black, and those patients who use drugs. Predicting and addressing cancer care workforce challenges: we are utilizing population-level data to model the impacts of different potential solutions (ie: task shifting, utilization of AI, new models of care) on cancer care workforce capacity. We are also implementing and pragmatically evaluating a CIHR-funded pan-Canadian cancer care workforce optimization education and coaching program.