Two IHPME Connaught Fellows Are Putting Patient Experience First, From Care Transitions to Healthcare AI

Through support from the Connaught Fund, two IHPME students are reimagining how innovation and lived experience can come together to improve healthcare.

By: Marielle Boutin

Natasha Henriques, PhD candidate in Health Systems Research (HSR), and Gemma Postill, MD/PhD candidate pursuing a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research (CEHCR), were named among the 2026-27 cohort of Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellows. Both students now share a motivation to propel their research projects forward, with a focus on patient-centred co-design, public engagement and translating research into health system impact.

Helping Families Navigate a Critical Healthcare Transition

Natasha Henriques’ project leverages her experience as a Clinical Research Project Manager at SickKids, where she witnessed firsthand the challenges youth with medical complexity (YMC) face when transitioning from paediatric to adult healthcare. The experience sparked her interest in the issue and ultimately shaped the focus of her doctoral research.

“Families often describe this transition as ‘being pushed off a cliff’,” she says. “I was deeply moved by caregivers’ distress as they described leaving interdisciplinary paediatric teams and transitioning to family physicians with limited capacity to meet their child’s intensive care coordination needs. These experiences motivated my doctoral research.”

Henriques’ fellowship project will see her doctoral research findings translated into key recommendations to improve this transition for patients and families, starting with the development of a knowledge toolkit that incorporates social network visualizations, journey mapping and lived experiences.

This toolkit will serve as the foundation for healthcare briefs and a collaborative workshop, providing an opportunity for families, clinicians, and leaders to share experiences and lessons learned.

Henriques hopes her fellowship will empower those who experience, deliver and shape care to come together to co-create solutions for transition gaps, saying, “my fellowship project will engage families, policy advisors, clinicians and health system leaders in interpreting findings and co-developing knowledge tools, building population-level evidence into dialogue with lived and professional expertise.”

Making AI More Accessible, Equitable and Patient-Centred

While fellow cohort member Gemma Postill’s project addresses a different aspect of health care, both projects are united by their focus on co-creation and patient and clinician engagement.

Postill’s project is focused on improving AI literacy among patients and clinicians so they can take a more active role in the development of healthcare AI. The project includes the creation of AI learning modules that introduce foundational AI concepts, applications, and best practices related to safety, bias, privacy and equity.

According to Postill, all aspects of the project will be carried out with patients and providers in mind, involving them early and throughout the development process.

“I have observed how, without patient co-design, these tools may not be as useful, equitable or impactful as they could be,” she says, emphasizing that the project’s impact will extend beyond the individual patient partners and organizations involved, with potential for it to be adapted as a widely used and scalable resource that can be implemented in hospitals and health systems.

“My work contributes to a broader conversation about responsible innovation,” says Postill, adding that, despite advances in technology, the value of lived experience and patient perspectives cannot be understated.

Ultimately, Henriques’ and Postill’s projects demonstrate that meaningful health system innovation is not only achieved through new knowledge and technologies, but through authentic partnerships with those that are most directly impacted.