Dr. Danielle Martin
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Dr. Danielle Martin

Acclaimed Physician and Health Care Expert

Dr. Danielle Martin is on the frontlines of transforming the healthcare system. An internationally recognized health policy leader and executive, Martin is committed to revolutionizing healthcare to meet the demands of the 21st century. She speaks with passion on our national healthcare system, defending and defining the ways we can make it even more worthy of our national pride.

Currently, Martin is the executive vice-president and chief medical executive at Women’s College Hospital, where she is also a practicing family physician. She’s leading the creation of Women’s Virtual, Canada’s first virtual hospital, and helping to create a hospital that leverages digital tools to bring care directly to the patient, re-shaping modern healthcare to be more accessible, timely, and innovative.

Martin made headlines in 2014 when her testimony on the merits of the Canadian vs. American health systems at a US Senate Subcommittee hearing, with Senators Richard Burr and Bernie Sanders, went viral. The video received over 35 million views online as well as worldwide media attention.

A go-to media spokesperson, Martin frequently provides commentary on health issues in the media, and is a known health contributor for the CBC. She is also the author of the national bestseller, Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians. In addition, she is an associate professor at the University of Toronto and is frequently asked to advise governments on how best to improve healthcare systems.

Martin has been named one of Toronto Life magazine’s “Top 50 Influentials”; called one of the most powerful doctors by The Medical Post; and is listed as one of the Toronto Star’s top “13 People to Watch”. In 2019 she became the youngest physician ever to receive the F.N.G Starr Award, the highest honour available to Canadian Medical Association members.

Delivering on the Promise of Medicare

What exactly is the Promise of Medicare? For starters, it has to do with living our values, specifically the value of equity of access to health care services.

Canada’s health care system was built on a promise we can all be proud of: the promise of access to services based on need, rather than the ability to pay. We can continue to be proud of that promise, but to deliver on it, Medicare needs to be improved. From the vantage point of a family doctor working in the system, this book shows how we can do better. Now.

Failure on the Hot Seat: Scaling Up Failure to Achieve Success in Health Care

It has been said that the Canadian health care system is a system of pilot projects: islands of excellence in a sea of challenges. In recent years, much work has been done to try to highlight and disseminate successful projects to improve quality, access and equity – and much remains to be done to ensure that we are not all continually trying to reinvent the wheel.

But in the area of learning from each other’s failures, we are even further behind. In the policy world, the clinical world and the research world, sharing failures is discouraged – let alone celebrating them. Dr. Danielle Martin will discuss why the health care system needs to learn to scale up both our successes and our failures, and how we might begin to do so.

The Pivot Point: From Pilot Project to System Solution

In 2014, Dr. Danielle Martin’s keen insights, wit and deep knowledge of Canada’s health care system brought her international acclaim when a video of her presentation to a United States Senate Subcommittee on health care went viral. Over 1.3 million people from across the globe watched as she challenged assumptions and changed minds about the state of health care in our country.

Now, hear insights into why change can be so challenging, what our usual stumbling blocks are and how we can work past them to transform small successes into bigger solutions that enhance the way we deliver care.