On this page:

Overview
ALIGN Program Faculty
Events and Materials
Past Resources
Contact

Program Overview

As a Collaborative Leadership Group:

ALIGN (Advancing Leadership and Integrated Governance Networks), formerly the ADVANCE Program, is a bespoke program supporting the advancement of Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) through the co-design and delivery of educational offerings and resources. ALIGN is an OHT central support and receives funding from the Ministry of Health. 

Bridging the gap between what we know and how we use that knowledge in real life, ALIGN provides essential training and support to help OHT leads, leaders, and partner organizations effectively implement collaborative models for leadership and governance. ALIGN’s activities generally fall under 3 categories: 

Cases & Contexts: Using mixed methods and realist evaluation approaches to understand what is working well, where, and why, and developing tools and roadmaps for OHTs at various stages of development. 

Curriculum: Co-designing a suite of educational and knowledge translation offerings in response to priority learning needs identified by OHT and PCN leaders. 

Competencies:  Identifying critical competencies for leadership and governance within emerging integrated care models and supporting competency development among OHT leaders and team members. 

ALIGN Events and Materials

Effective leadership in today’s integrated care environment requires a fundamental shift in how we approach uncertainty. Rather than viewing uncertainty as a threat to be eliminated, successful leaders develop comfort navigating within it and leverage it as a catalyst for innovation and strategic thinking. In this brief, we describe the mindsets and competencies for leading in uncertainty and provide tools for leveraging collective wisdom to navigate complex challenges. 

Multi-stakeholder decisions, such as within the OHT context, require effective negotiation skills. These skills foster stakeholder relationships, facilitate results, and manage workplace conflicts. In this introductory session, Dr. Kevin Tasa offers an overview of negotiation fundamentals and examines evidence-based approaches for engaging in successful negotiations.  

Guest presenter Kevin Tasa, Associate Professor in Organizational Studies and Associate Dean at the Schulich Business School, York University.  

Recorded June 17, 2025

  • Negotiation Skills Session Video Pending

In this session, HSPN partners with ALIGN to explore the essential role of adaptive leadership in advancing integrated care. Drs. Ross Baker, Michelle Nelson, and Patrick Feng introduce core concepts of adaptive leadership and practical tools to strengthen leadership capacity within Ontario Health Teams (OHTs). OHT leaders share their reflections on their current leadership contexts and describe real-world applications of adaptive strategies.  

June 24, 2025 

Primary Care Networks (PCNs) play a unique and crucial role in Ontario Health Teams (OHTs), enabling primary care participation in OHT decision-making and care delivery. Leadership structures and processes are thus foundational elements for all PCNs. From December 2025 through March 2026, ALIGN is hosting interactive peer learning sessions designed with and for Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) and Primary Care Networks (PCNs), aimed at strengthening collaborative leadership competencies and supporting the development of PCN governance structures and processes. Registration through the OHT Supports Events Calendar. 

Guest Presenter: Dr. Aine Carroll, Chair – International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) and Co-Director – IFIC Ireland. 

In this session, special guest, Áine Carroll, explores concepts, emerging tensions and considerations for collective leadership in integrated care. Áine highlights that despite guidance, rules and policies, the aspirational state for leadership and governance in integrated care remains elusive, requiring a blending of leadership styles and approaches at different system levels. 

June 3, 2025

ALIGN Program Faculty and Team Members

Based at the University of Toronto and Bruyere Health Research Institute, ALIGN team members bring a range of experience to provide tailored coaching, guidance and support on emerging leadership and governance issues faced by OHTs.  

Michelle Nelson

Dr. Michelle Nelson, ADVANCE and ALIGN Faculty Lead, is a Senior Investigator at the Bruyere Health Research Institute, Associate Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, and Implementation Scientist who works to transform fragmented healthcare into integrated systems. Dr. Nelson serves as Vice President of the World Stroke Organization and  Joint Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Integrated Care. Her research focuses on cross-sectoral partnerships, ultimately creating seamless, person-centred healthcare systems where evidence meets compassion. 

G. Ross Baker

 Dr. Ross Baker is an Emeritus Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. He was the Founding Program Director for the MSc in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety and was Co-Lead for the IDEAS program (Improving and Driving Excellent Across Sectors), providing QI education to multidisciplinary teams from 2013 to 2019 in partnership with Health Quality Ontario, ICES, and universities across Ontario. 

Patrick Feng

Dr. Patrick Feng is research manager at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, where he leads community research partnerships. These partnerships involve a range of stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, policymakers, municipal leaders, and others, working collaboratively to improve health and transform health systems. A two-time Fulbright Scholar, Patrick’s areas of expertise include health policy, innovation studies, and participatory research. He is a co-investigator on several grant-funded projects, where his knowledge of co-design and participatory methods contributes to innovative community-engaged research.  

Angela Freeman

Angela Freeman, RM, MSc is an ALIGN Associate.  As an applied health system researcher, recent OHT Impact Fellow, and Registered Midwife, Angela brings an array of experiences caring, leading, and learning within Ontario’s evolving health context. Her love of systems-thinking and qualitative methods provides grounding for understanding individuals’ experiences accessing and working within a health system.  Her current work is aimed at understanding the critical leadership competencies required for successful collaboration and governance within regional health systems.  

Past Resources

ADVANCE Program Overview

The ADVANCE Program was an OHT support program organized and funded by the Ministry of Health. Between 2020 and 2024, the program engaged OHT leaders in educational sessions aimed at building a foundation for effective leadership within collaborative governance models. Through webinars and a leadership series, ADVANCE provided opportunities for leaders to discuss issues of shared leadership, shared decision-making, and shared accountability. Utilizing a train-the-trainer approach, the ADVANCE team developed the Coaching Academy to support leadership capacity building of local OHT coaches.  

Please see here to learn more about the ADVANCE program.

Contact

For more information about the ALIGN program, please contact Dr. Michelle Nelson at:

mla.nelson@utoronto.ca 

LinkedIn

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