The Graham Seed Fund is designed to support research that directly relates to health-care delivery. By encouraging collaboration between University of Waterloo researchers and local providers, the program creates a space for identifying needs, shaping research questions, and developing evidence that matters to practice.
As part of the Care Next Coalition (Care Next), the Graham Seed Fund is vital for linking academic research with health system priorities throughout the Waterloo Region. Care Next, founded in 2024 as a partnership between Waterloo and the Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN), offers a platform that brings together system needs, clinical insights, and research capabilities.
“The Graham Seed Fund brings health-care organizations and researchers together around real system needs. This round focuses on AI readiness in community care-generating the insights required to support safe and effective adoption. Through Care Next, we are aligning frontline priorities with research expertise to strengthen readiness and inform how AI can be meaningfully integrated into care delivery,” says Danina Kapetanovic, Vice-President, Innovation and AI Strategy, Chief Health Innovation Officer at WRHN and the University of Waterloo; and leader for Care Next.
In line with Waterloo’s Global Futures priorities, researchers are collaborating with local hospitals, Ontario Health Teams, and community partners to tackle complex challenges within the health system through practical, informed research.
This round of the Graham Seed Fund invited projects that look at factors influencing responsible AI adoption in community care, create evidence on readiness, and develop strategies that can guide both policy-making and implementation. The chosen projects show a strong commitment to collaboration, with researchers working closely alongside WRHN, Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health, Kids Ability, Brightshores Health System, Schlegel Villages and regional Ontario Health Teams.
Seven researchers from Waterloo have each been awarded $35,000 to support this important work. The funded projects along with their team leads are listed below.
Human-AI teaming in rural hospitals: Human factors evaluation and readiness assessment for the co-design of an AI system for a patient access and flow unit
Catherine Burns (Researcher) Brightshores Health System (Partner)
Building confidence and collaboration for generative AI use in community-based health care
Karen Cochrane (Researcher) Kids Ability (Partner)
Chemotherapy drug wastage control
Fatih Safa Erenay (Researcher) Waterloo Regional Health Network
A socio-technical readiness framework for AI-driven data capture and workflow analysis in procedural community care settings: The case of AFib ablation
Sharon Ferguson (Researcher) Waterloo Regional Health Network
Community-care AI readiness: Data, ethics, and culture for patient monitoring in the Waterloo Region
Moojan Ghafurian (Researcher) Waterloo Regional Health Network; Skopien (Partners)
Experiential AI literacy through use case discovery and implementation
Edith Law (Researcher) Waterloo Regional Health Network; Schlegel Villages; Cambridge North Dumfries Ontario Health Team; Ottawa Valley Ontario Health Team; KW4 Ontario Health Team (Partners)
Co-designing a gen AI readiness and safeguards evaluation toolkit for community mental health-care settings
Jim Wallace (Researcher) Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health (Partner)
The Graham Seed Fund is made possible by the J. W. Graham Trust Endowment Fund. Visit the Transformative Health Technologies website to learn more about the fund.
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