News
A New Chapter: The Centre for Digital Therapeutics
September 6, 2022
By: Dr. Quynh Pham
I joined the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation as a student seven years ago because I wanted my work to help people tell stories of living well. The Centre quickly became my professional home, a place with the talent, energy, and resources to turn my research dreams into reality. What I never expected to happen was that it would become my personal home too. Some of my closest friends trained with me at the Centre. We watched each other fall in and out of love, move across and out of the city, care for our aging parents, and build rewarding careers while trying to not burn out. I’ve been generously mentored by Centre alumni who opened hidden doors for me and urged me to pursue a boundless life beyond the ivory tower. Their support has allowed me to see a future for the Centre that honours its 20-year legacy but is reflective of the new and different stories people are telling nowadays about wanting to live well beyond illness.
To meet the needs of this brave new world, I am proud to announce our new chapter as the Centre for Digital Therapeutics. This change marks a significant milestone in our journey and serves as a moment for me to reflect on everything that the Centre stood for and what it aspires to become. We will be returning to our roots in R&D and developing digital therapeutics informed by emerging theory and practice. In parallel, we will also move our products through a new commercialization pipeline to scale, spread, and sustain our global impact. We will intentionally choose to be collaborative rather than competitive, and welcome new partnerships to strengthen the evidence base for digital therapeutics. The stakes are higher as we look to build increasingly smart and sophisticated Software as a Medical Device, and the role of our quality management systems and deep understanding of regulatory pathways will allow us to dream big and fail safely.
The landscape of healthcare is forever changed and so too has the Centre. When I look at its students and staff today, I see in them a recognition of the complex health and social needs faced by all Canadians and a determination to drive equitable change. The work we do to engage and empower patients through the use of technology to become partners in their own healthcare has not changed in intent, but scaled in ambition. I hope that our new vision will convince the best and brightest minds to come join the Centre for Digital Therapeutics and conspire with us to help patients and families live well. More importantly, I hope that the people and culture of the Centre will make their work lives meaningful. I so look forward to ushering in this new era of digital therapeutics alongside our colleagues and collaborators, both old and new. There’s so much work to be done and we are only just getting started.