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For Damian Jankowicz, it comes back to people. Jankowicz joined Unity Health Toronto earlier this month as an executive vice president and its first chief information and AI officer. Given that he has dedicated his career to information technology and informatics roles in Ontario’s public health system, you might expect computers and technology to be his driving force. In truth, the people he works with propel him forward each day.

Damian Jankowicz

“My colleagues are what inspire me most,” he says. “My clinical colleagues save and transform lives every single day. My research colleagues are shaping the future of care. My education colleagues are training the next crop of healthcare professionals. My corporate colleagues could work anywhere but choose to work in health care because of the impact they can have.”

With nearly a decade of experience as an executive leader, Jankowicz brings a wealth of experience to his new role. Before joining Unity Health, he was based at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health where he helped establish the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics – a centre focused on AI, mental health and brain research – and received awards for the hospital’s electronic health record.

At Unity Health, he will steward major technological transformations as we implement a new electronic patient record throughout the network and continue to grow the impact of our cutting-edge AI team.

We sat down with Jankowicz to learn more about his past, his priorities and his leadership philosophy.

What excited you most about the prospect of joining the Unity Health Toronto network?

There were three factors that really excited me about joining Unity Health. First of all, this is a world renowned hospital system – one of the largest healthcare networks in Canada – with an incredible mission to provide the best care experiences for truly everyone, including society’s most marginalized populations. That scope of impact and inspiring mission was one of my key decision points.

The second factor was Project Connect. Implementing an electronic patient record project on such a large scale – as Unity Health is – can be challenging but is ultimately extremely rewarding. The project will truly transform the care we provide now and for many years to come.

Finally, I’m excited about Unity Health’s leadership in the AI space. I admire the vision that Muhammad Mamdani [VP of Data Science and Advanced Analytics at Unity Health] has for applied health AI and the work he and the teams across Unity Health have done to improve patient care with AI. Muhammad and I have worked together in the same space for years now and I look forward to collaborating with him to support our AI efforts. 

How do you see your new role at Unity Health strengthening our world-leading applied AI program?

My introduction to AI was as an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto when I took my first neural networks class with Geoffrey Hinton – one of the godfathers of AI. His impact has truly changed my life trajectory. I was so inspired by the possibilities that I couldn’t think of doing anything else. I went on to study AI and neural networks and received my PhD.

I genuinely believe that AI will transform society. It’s already happening in the background – and some of it is happening before of our eyes. The impact on health care will be profound. It will also come with risks around bias, fairness and privacy, which we will have to take very seriously and manage carefully.

Given the transformational nature of AI, my main role will be to advance the overall AI strategy for the hospital. I want to make sure that we maintain our focus and support our exceptional AI team to expand AI’s footprint at Unity Health. I also want to help us to seize the opportunity we have to drive innovation in health AI more broadly.

What are some of your priorities for your first few months at Unity Health?

My top priority is Project Connect. It is a massive clinical transformation that will require – as we’re already seeing – a tremendous effort from the entire network. I’m getting up to speed and injecting some of my experience into the project.

My other priority is to get to know Unity Health Toronto. I’m meeting people from the different sites and connecting with a large range of clinical, research, education and corporate staff.

Lastly, coming back to the topic of AI, the field of AI is transforming so quickly that we really can’t take our foot off the gas. I will continue to get to know the colleagues who are doing great AI work here already. We will learn from each other, continue to position ourselves and drive that overarching AI strategy for the network.

You began your healthcare leadership trajectory at St. Michael’s as a Research Informatics Manager, how does it feel to be returning back to your roots?

On one hand, I do have deep connections to Unity Health already. As you mentioned, I worked at St. Michael’s Hospital a long time ago. I’ve met a number of people already that had worked with me back then at St. Mike’s – thankfully, everybody’s happy to see me again! I also have personal connection to St. Joseph’s. My younger daughter was born there and my family has had great care experiences at St. Joe’s.

On the other hand, it does not feel like a return at all. So many things have changed, right? We are a brand new health network.

I’m excited for the vision of the network. I will definitely spend a lot of time at each site getting to know people. I cannot wait to continue to learn more about Providence. I’m excited for the scope and the breadth of things that we can do together.

Do you have a leadership philosophy?

My leadership philosophy is very simple: let amazing people do amazing work.

I spend a lot of time engaging with teams and people to come up with a concrete vision so everybody is on the same page. Then I step back and let the teams execute – let them fly. At that point, my job is to remove barriers that come up for them.

I have the privilege to work with some of the most amazing people and my job is to make sure that they have what they need to deliver on the goals we set out together.

What motivates you?

What motivates me is the power of technology to revolutionize care and have a real impact on patients and families. I truly believe that technology can change how we deliver care and how we interact with our patients to provide them with best care experiences. I see it as an integral part of my job to bring technological advances into patient care.

Emerging technologies are exciting and motivating – primarily because of the ways they can improve people’s lives.

What are your first impressions of Unity Health since you started?

I’m still new and still learning – but so far I’ve met some great teams and dedicated people. You can tell that Unity Health is a mission-driven organization that lives and breathes patient experience.

It’s been a warm welcome and I look forward to all the great things we will achieve together.

By: Robyn Cox

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