Introducing… a research development and innovation officer

Andrea Lee is our research development and innovation officer. This is a new role at Hamilton Health Sciences so she’s only been here for a few months. Andrea works closely with our Innovation Exchange, a partnership with IBM Canada.

What do you love most about your role?

The amazing people I get to meet everyday, the creativity and passion of the solutions they create to empower healthcare providers, streamline efficiencies and transform healthcare. HHS has placed an emphasis on expanding their innovation agenda, which is an exciting part of my role to execute!

What do you find challenging?

What I identify to be most challenging is prioritizing all the requests from the people and companies that I meet. There are so many brilliant ideas, but sometimes the innovations don’t align well with the core challenges within HHS. I want to help each company identify other opportunities or connections to validate and grow their ideas and technologies, but it can be difficult to find the time to help everyone.

Ultimately, I’m bringing people together who are looking to advance our healthcare through technology.

Describe a typical day.

I meet a wide variety of people each day. Typically, I’ll have a meeting with an innovator who has a brilliant technology and is looking for a clinical champion at HHS to help develop it further. Plus, I’ll chat with a clinician researcher who has identified a priority challenge in their clinical practice and is interested in harnessing the potential of technology to co-develop a solution to better inform patient care and outcomes. I’ll chat with students looking for opportunities to gain clinical research experience for career development or entrepreneurial endeavours. Sometimes, I’ll also meet with industry partners who provides enabling support services within photoics and optics for medical device and digital health technologies who are interested in partnerships. Ultimately, I’m bringing people together who are looking to advance our healthcare through technology.

Tell us about your most gratifying experience at HHS.

The most gratifying experience at HHS is discovering that the people I work with are truly passionate and dedicated individuals. On top of that, the research administration department is led by incredibly innovative leadership, who have supported partnerships such as the Innovation Exchange. All of the innovators that I meet are consistently surprised that we have established such an amazing purpose built collaboration space with our generous IBM partners, a dedicated initiative to supporting the acceleration of digital health technologies.

All of the innovators that I meet are surprised that we have established a collaboration space with IBM

What’s one thing people would be surprised to learn about your role?

How creativity plays a huge part in this role! I need to find creative ways to link people, assets, technology and resources together to create health innovative teams and projects that align within the Innovation Exchange mandate or within the strategic pillars of HHS! It’s no wonder I loved puzzles so much as a child!