Dr. Kevin Smith
University Health Network
President & CEO
About
At the University Health Network (UHN), we are committed to advancing health care and transforming the patient experience through innovation, research and education. We proudly support a range of philanthropic initiatives and organizations that align with these goals.
Our foundations include UHN Foundation, Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation and the West Park Foundation. Our foundations play a crucial role in funding groundbreaking research, patient care and educational programs at UHN. With the support of our philanthropic partners, we have been able to make transformative investments in cutting-edge fields like regenerative medicine, organ transplantation, rehabilitation care and neurosciences. Our donors also enable us to integrate technological advancements, including the development of AI-driven diagnostics and precision medicine and support critical capital development projects.
We are dedicated to addressing health disparities by focusing on the social determinants of health, including housing, education and employment. Our Social Medicine program supports initiatives that bridge the gap between health care and social services, and our community partnerships enable us to deploy digital tools like telehealth and remote monitoring systems to underserved populations, ensuring equitable access to care.
Education
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Doctorate
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Sussex, 2001 -
Bachelor's Degree
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
McMaster University, 1986
Awards & Certifications
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Order of Ontario (O.Ont.)
Government of Ontario -
Knight of St. Gregory (KSG)
Awarded by the Holy See (Vatican), under the authority of His Holiness The Pope -
Queen Elizabeth II Silver and Golden Jubilee Medals 2012
Government of Canada, commemorating the respective Jubilee anniversaries of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Philanthropic Endeavors
- At the University Health Network (UHN), we are committed to advancing healthcare and transforming the patient experience through innovation, research, and education. We proudly support a range of philanthropic initiatives and organizations that align with these goals, including:
- Our Foundations: UHN Foundation, Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation and the West Park Foundation: Our foundations play a crucial role in funding ground-breaking research, patient care, and educational programs at UHN. With the support of our philanthropic partners, we have been able to make transformative investments in cutting-edge fields like regenerative medicine, organ transplantation, rehabilitation care, and neurosciences. Our donors also enable us to integrate technological advancements, including the development of AI-driven diagnostics and precision medicine and support critical capital development projects.
- Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health Initiatives: We are dedicated to addressing health disparities by focusing on the social determinants of health, including housing, education, and employment. Our Social Medicine program supports initiatives that bridge the gap between healthcare and social services, and our community partnerships enable us to deploy digital tools like telehealth and remote monitoring systems to underserved populations, ensuring equitable access to care.
Links to Rankings during tenure
Dr. Kevin Smith is president and CEO of the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto, Canada's No. 1 research academic health sciences center and home to one of the top three hospitals in the world. Under Smith's leadership, UHN has rapidly advanced new models of care delivery to improve patient access including integrated care, virtual care, social medicine and the adoption of AI.
UHN is the world's No. 1 publicly funded hospital, with 10 sites and more than 44,000 TeamUHN members, including staff, physicians, volunteers, learners and researchers. UHN consists of Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, The Michener Institute of Education and West Park Healthcare Centre. As Canada's top research hospital, the scope of biomedical research and complexity of cases at UHN have made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. UHN has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in neurosciences, cardiology, transplantation, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine. UHN is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. www.uhn.ca
Was there a defining moment or an experience that solidified your commitment to health care?
I was in university, doing a volunteer stint in a university hospital emergency room, McMaster University in Hamilton [Ontario]. It had been a particularly exciting shift, and we were kind of roadrunners with blood samples—the world wasn't as digital as it is today. Just seeing the interaction between the team. Seeing the gratitude, hopefulness and unbelievable relationship that had formed between the providers, the patient and the family, and then talking to the team who were providing care about the science underlying the treatment really brought it all together for me.
As you reflect on your career journey, what motivated you to transition into health care leadership?
I'm a terrible example of the five-year plan. I've never had one. I've never considered one. Because of my early mentorship, it was fascinating and interesting. Could I get up every day and be excited about it? Am I going to work with people who are remarkable and more talented than I am and who I can learn some things from? At the end of the day, will it feel like we made some impact? So, I didn't narrow my scope.
When I started, I had no idea there was such a thing as a president or CEO of a hospital. I ended up being slowly absorbed first into university administration by a remarkable scientist and academic administrator named John Bienenstock, who asked me to come and work with him. And, in those days, if the dean asked you to do something, you did it. At this point, I was in medical education, and when the dean brought me into his orbit, it opened my eyes to this whole world of how you actually move organizations.
In this role that you've found yourself in, how do you define success as CEO?
My best answer to that is I don't define success. Every patient encounter defines success for our clinical mission. The impact of our research defines success for our scholarly mission. And the trajectory of the careers of learners defines success for our educational mission. And when we get it just right, and we don't get it right every time, those three elusive things come together in that remarkable way, then I think we've got remarkable success.
Is there a particular story that deeply moved you and also reinforces the importance of UHN's work?
A remarkable young man named Zach...had a five-organ transplant right here at University Health Net. When we brought together the team that could do this, it was a perfect example of our slogan, which is "never been done is what we do." You can imagine not only for Zach, but for his family, how frightening going into this was.
Zach and his family made the choice to move forward. We assembled this remarkable team from multiple specialties, even some from outside of the normal UHN orbit, from our partner institutions.
Success is offering extended life with quality. And patients need to decide what that quality is, and we need to respond with our best efforts to educate them and offer them our perspective. And then, after that, it is the patient's decision, and we have to respect that.
Trust is vital in health care. How does UHN foster trust with patients, especially within underserved communities?
Trust is absolutely vital in health care, within the team, as well as with the patient and family. And trust is built by transparency. Trust is enhanced by relationships. So how are you getting closest to those who may question their trust in institutions or in individuals?
We've put a lot of energy and effort, particularly into communities that may have historically not had good experiences with institutional settings or health care settings. Thanks to one of my colleagues, Dr. Mike Anderson, and our Indigenous health program doing some great work and reaching out and reconciliation with our Indigenous patients and workers. Similarly, with our other BIPOC communities, there are many ESG groups who have come together to talk about how this can be a more welcoming environment.
The best way to build trust is to also expose your vulnerabilities and allow yourself to ask questions. Trust is a two-way street. So, that has to also be met, often by those who may have experienced less-than-ideal reception in health care systems, to be willing to also foster that trust and build that trust and re-engage in trying to build such a therapeutic relationship.
How does UHN ensure that it remains a global leader in health care innovation?
There are three ways we try to stay at that cutting edge of world-class. First, by being connected to the world, by being engaged with the best partners, the best hospitals, the best universities, and the best science and scientists. Partnerships are key.
The second piece is constantly looking at outcomes, results and data. Most of us are living in a data-rich world, so we drown in data and thirst for information. One of our big foci is how do you dig through an increasing amount of data to look for that hidden truth?
The last piece is always all about people. How do you, in a particularly competitive world, help those individuals understand why you can get things done here in this unique ecosystem even if we won't always have the newest equipment or be able to pay the most.
UHN is a pioneer in AI research and AI-driven care. How are tools like predictive analytics and personalized medicine transforming outcomes for patients?
We're very fortunate to have people like our chief AI scientist, Bo Wang, join our team. It's fascinating to see almost every significant research team have an AI scientist embedded within. Only five years ago, we would never have even been thinking in that lens.
AI science at the next level is how do you incorporate what already exists in proven technologies into our operations. All the leading technology companies, medical supply companies and health information systems—like Epic and Apple—are embedding AI, and we're the beneficiary of those. I would look at those as kind of the basic or foundational components of AI that we're deploying.
Then, of course, there's the true scholarly research in AI. And I'm happy to say we're blessed to have a partnership with the Vector Institute, one of the world's leading basic science institutes focused on better understanding AI. Jeff Hinton, who received the Nobel Prize, is the leader of that institute. As we think about the application and development of AI, can we step back and talk about the ethics? And the patient lens of understanding and how Big Data will be used and how we feel about sharing information in new and unique ways and issues of privacy, issues of commercialization.
It's a fascinating and robust field and one we are working on getting more right every day.
How has UHN's use of telemedicine, wearable devices and remote monitoring improved the patient experience and care delivery?
Remote monitoring and technology-driven support are absolutely the future of health care. I have yet to meet a patient today who wouldn't much rather be at home as quickly as humanly possible.
We also have launched with the partners at Apple the use of a virtual emergency room and urgent care, not only in our own province, but in the province of Nova Scotia. Eighty-five percent of people who we see virtually do not need to come to an institution. Better for cost, better for access, at every level.
Then there are technologies developed at UHN like Medly, a perfect example of where colleagues like Dr. Heather Ross have clinically looked at those who are most at risk of re-admission.
In the modern world and in the G15 economies, one of the most common reasons for admission through our emergency rooms is patients who have congestive heart failure.
Heather and her technology colleagues have come together and built this remarkable platform at UHN, and in so doing, have created an opportunity where global management of congestive heart failure is possible. It's even more possible now with AI, since it's feeding in data from a downloadable waist scale and a downloadable blood pressure cuff. Every day you are getting a phone call about whether your titration of medication, whether you need to prevent your exacerbation. Fundamentally, it's like seeing a cardiologist every single day, simply by stepping on a scale and putting on a blood pressure cuff at home.
That may seem reasonably simple, but for every admission we can avoid, and every new exacerbation of heart failure, we not only improve the quality of life, we are likely to improve the length of life.
This technology, which wouldn't have been possible without a broad team of people—working closely with Dr. Ross is Dr. Joe Cafazzo and the Human Factors Lab.
Medly is but one example of many, but it's really exciting to think about how you now supercharge something developed here that could spread around the world, collect data from every population around the world, and fundamentally change how we manage heart failure and see a significant creation of capacity in our over-stressed hospitals.
What do you see as the most significant opportunity for the health care industry today, and how is UHN positioned to lead that space?
The most significant opportunity for the health care system today is providing the highest standard of care to the largest portion of the population humanly possible. There are diverse needs by diverse groups, be they genetically diverse, racially diverse, socioeconomically diverse, but we are entering that era where we can and should better understand subpopulations.
I'll just give you a quick example. Toronto is the most diverse city in the world. When we look at our population, they are drawn from every corner of our world in significant numbers. If you're doing a randomized controlled clinical trial and enrolling patients in Toronto, you are getting the gene pool of the world. You can generalize those results much more broadly or much more narrowly if you're looking at subpopulations at higher risk with certain diseases.
It's tremendously exciting that we continue to push forward, both in the application of technology to do so, and then in the public policy realm, working with payers, working with philanthropists, working with futurists, to say, "How can we build a better system?"
Kevin Smith is a member of the Newsweek CEO Circle, an invite-only executive community of subscribers.
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