Leading in a Disruptive Healthcare Era: AI, Innovation, and Transformative Leadership
Professional Development Workshop
Date: Wednesday 28 October
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Cost: $75
Location: The Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto, Room TBD
Ticket prices do not include food or beverage. Bring along your favorite beverage and snack to keep you energized throughout the morning
Description
Leading in a Disruptive Healthcare Era: AI, Innovation, and Transformative Leadership is an immersive four-hour pre-conference workshop designed to prepare healthcare leaders for rapid and complex change.
The program explores the key forces reshaping healthcare, including advances in artificial intelligence, evolving global challenges, and shifting expectations for leadership. Participants gain insight into emerging trends and develop practical strategies for leading effectively in uncertain and dynamic environments.
Through expert led discussions and targeted sessions, attendees examine critical issues such as ethical decision making, workforce resilience, and the integration of innovation into practice. Special focus is placed on preventing ethical drift in technology driven systems and understanding the growing role of AI in medical education.
An interactive workshop component allows participants to apply adaptive leadership approaches, strengthen communication, and navigate resistance to change through real world scenarios.
The experience concludes with reflection and action planning, equipping participants with clear, actionable steps to drive meaningful transformation within their organizations.
Agenda
Welcome and Framing
Dr. John Heiser, Pre-Conference Co-Chair; Assistant Dean, Leadership and Faculty Development, UMass Chan-Lahey Regional Medical School
Opening Keynote
Dr. Susan Moffatt-Bruce, President, Lahey Clinic
The Keynote Address will outline the disruptive forces reshaping healthcare and providing a comparative, global overview of leadership challenges. Content includes emerging trends, global comparisons, and required competencies. There will be a short Q&A after the talk.
Leadership in an Era of Global Healthcare Disruption
Dr. John Heiser, Pre-Conference Co-Chair; Assistant Dean, Leadership and Faculty Development, UMass Chan-Lahey Regional Medical School
Dr. Susan Moffatt-Bruce, President, Lahey Clinic
Dr. Ian Bowmer, Professor Emeritus, and former Dean, Memorial University Faculty of Medicine
Dr. Jalil Afnan, Chair of Radiology at Lahey Clinic (Beth Israel Lahey Health) and Director of the Lahey Innovation Hub
System leaders, educators, and innovation experts discuss leading through uncertainty, ethics, equity, workforce resilience, and practical real-world lessons.
Stopping Ethical Drift in the Context of Technology Innovation
Dr. Cameron Stockdale, Executive Director of AgSafeBC and former President and CEO of the Work Wellness Institute
This presentation invites the audience to examine how ethical judgment is shaped by the systems, pressures, and technologies that surround healthcare.
The Criticality of Healthcare Leadership in Medical Education
Dr. Erin Barry, Associate Professor, Health Professions Education, Uniformed Services University
In a healthcare era shaped by AI, innovation, and disruption, leadership education must prepare professionals not only to lead, but also to follow well. This talk will examine how leadership and followership emerge in everyday practice through uncertainty, hierarchy, team communication, speaking up, and technology-enabled change.
Leadership in the Midst of Disruptive Change
Dr. John Heiser, Pre-Conference Co-Chair; Assistant Dean, Leadership and Faculty Development, UMass Chan-Lahey Regional Medical School
Interactive session to equip participants with tools for leading during disruption. Passive or active resistance remains one of the major reasons most change efforts achieve suboptimal performance. Managing the resistance that inevitably arises can be the most important aspect to accelerating positive change during periods of uncertainty.
The session poses a new path forward for healthcare leaders to proactively lean into resistance in a manner that invites those impacted by the change to engage in a positive, solutions-oriented dialogue embedded into the organization’s culture.
Closing Reflections
Dr. Cameron Stockdale & Dr. John Heiser
Participants consolidate takeaways, create 30-day action steps, and engage in open reflection.
Facilitators
Dr. Susan Moffatt-Bruce, President, Lahey Clinic
Dr. Susan D. Moffatt-Bruce, MD, FRCSC, PhD, MBA, MBOE, FACS, is Divisional President of the Massachusetts-based Beth Israel Lahey Health and President of Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, responsible for leading all operational aspects of the world-renowned 333-bed, physician-led medical center regarded for its integrated clinic model of care, pioneering medical treatment, innovative technology and leading-edge research. In 2024, she led the launch of the UMass Chan-Lahey Regional Medical School campus in Burlington, furthering Lahey’s advancement as a learning health system and its delivery of world-class care. An accomplished cardiothoracic surgeon and research scientist, she serves as a professor of surgery for UMass Chan-Lahey.
Prior to joining Lahey Clinic in 2023, Dr. Moffatt-Bruce served as Chief Executive Officer of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and Royal College International and was a faculty member and professor at the University of Ottawa. Previously, she served as executive director at The Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center. She holds an undergraduate degree from McGill University; medical degree from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia; and doctorate in transplant immunology from the University of Cambridge, England. She completed her cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at Stanford University, California. She received her Master of Business Operational Excellence and her Executive Master of Business Administration from Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University.
An academic leader, surgeon and funded health outcomes research scientist, Dr. Moffatt-Bruce has a deep commitment to value-driven care and the development of standards in health care. She was honored with the American Medical Association Women Physicians Section Inspiration Award in 2023 and was recognized with a Boston Business Journal Icon Award: Women Who Mean Business honoring her significant impact within Greater Boston’s business community in 2025. Dr. Moffatt-Bruce has been named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s “Women Hospital and Health System Presidents and CEOs to Know” list for three consecutive years in 2024, 2025 and 2026 and has been selected by The Women’s Edge as one of the Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts in 2024, 2025 and 2026. She serves on the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association Board of Trustees and is a leader in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons.
Dr. John Heiser, Pre-Conference Co-Chair; Assistant Dean, Leadership and Faculty Development, UMass Chan-Lahey Regional Medical School
John Heiser, Ph.D, MBA, JD, is a transformational and global practitioner-scholar with more than 25 years of senior leadership experience in multimillion-dollar healthcare, technology, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical organizations.
John currently serves as Assistant Dean, Leadership and Faculty Development at UMass Chan Medical School-Lahey, is the Director, LEAD@Lahey Pathway program at the UMass Chan-Lahey, and is Assistant Professor, UMass Chan-Lahey Department of Medicine. He also is the Founder and CEO of TRG Management Solutions, LLC, an executive coaching and organizational development consulting firm. John began his career as an attorney in private practice before transitioning into business, where he has held numerous senior leadership and C-suite positions across private and public organizations as general counsel and head of HR, head of sales and marketing, president and chief operating officer of a global manufacturing firm, and CEO of a global technology firm.
Dr. Heiser earned a Ph.D. in Values-Driven Leadership from Benedictine University, an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business, a JD from Tulane University School of Law, and a BA in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Iowa.
Dr. Ian Bowmer, Professor Emeritus, and former Dean, Memorial University Faculty of Medicine
Dr. Jalil Afnan, Chair of Radiology at Lahey Clinic (Beth Israel Lahey Health) and Director of the Lahey Innovation Hub
Dr. Jalil Afnan, MD, MRCS, is Chair of Radiology at Lahey Clinic (Beth Israel Lahey Health) and Director of the Lahey Innovation Hub.
He leads strategic initiatives focused on clinical operations, artificial intelligence, and healthcare innovation. Dr. Afnan’s work centers on operational excellence, imaging services, data-driven performance improvement, and the integration of AI into clinical workflows. A former Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education at Lahey, he remains committed to fostering innovation through the lens of education and developing high-performing teams to drive healthcare transformation.
Dr. Erin Barry, Associate Professor, Health Professions Education, Uniformed Services University
Erin S. Barry is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Professions Education at the Uniformed Services University (USU). She is a health professions education researcher who develops and delivers curriculum and education assessments, and conducts research and scholarship related to leadership, followership, and healthcare teams. She has a secondary appointment as Associate Professor in the USU Department of Military and Emergency Medicine and Military and Emergency Medicine. She contributes to leadership education, development, assessment, scholarship, and online learning. Additionally, she is an ICF-certified Leadership Coach.
Dr. Barry earned a B.E. (2006) in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. She earned an M.S. (2008) in Biomedical Engineering from University of Texas at Arlington with a focus on Tissue Engineering and Drug Delivery. She completed her PhD (2024) in Health Professions Education focusing on leadership and followership within healthcare teams from Maastricht University in The Netherlands. She has worked at USU since 2010 where her research has focused on traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and leadership. She has co-authored more than 80 papers and chapters as well as the books, “Innovative Leadership for Healthcare” and “Leading Self and Others with Emotional Intelligence.” She is a co-founder of the International Leadership Association’s Healthcare Leadership Community. In addition, she helps to mentor faculty, staff, and students with regard to research activities and is a leadership coach.
Dr. Cameron Stockdale, Executive Director of AgSafeBC and former President and CEO of the Work Wellness Institute
Dr. Cameron Stockdale is Executive Director of AgSafeBC and former President and CEO of the Work Wellness Institute. His work examines how leadership, organizational culture, and technological change shape workplace health and safety, employee well-being, and an organization’s capacity to adapt and navigate complex change.
His perspective is grounded in nearly 25 years in paramedicine, spanning frontline practice through senior operational leadership, and further informed by executive roles, applied research, teaching, and public service. Dr. Stockdale is Past Chair of the International Leadership Association’s Healthcare Leadership Community, a founding partner of Vocational Rehabilitation Network International, and a member of the Inquiry Committee of the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia. Across these roles, his work has focused on translating research and evidence into practical approaches to the challenges facing leaders, workplaces, and organizations.
Dr. Stockdale’s interdisciplinary academic background includes a Doctor of Education in Interdisciplinary Leadership from Creighton University, a Master of Laws in Innovation & Technology from the University of Edinburgh, a Master of Arts Leadership from the University of Guelph, and a postgraduate certificate in Organizational Behavior from Harvard Extension School. He has been nationally recognized for his contributions to workplace mental health and to advancing safer, healthier, and more sustainable workplaces.