Projects and Publications

Current projects 

• The impact of financial ties on study conclusions: a systematic review of studies examining direct-to-consumer virtual care [Women’s College Hospital Academic and Medical Services Group Innovation Fund]

• Marketing pharmaceutical products through patient care systems: an explication and analysis [SSHRC Insight grant] 

• Direct-to-consumer commercial virtual care: a scoping review [JANUS Research grant]

• Transforming personal health information into commercial assets: opportunities, ethics and risks [SSHRC Insight Development grant] 

Reports

2022

• Commercial virtual care services in Canada: digital trails, de-identified data and privacy implications  

Publications 

2024

• Typology of virtual primary care in Canada

• How the commercial virtual care industry gathers, uses and values patient data: a Canadian qualitative study

2023

• Commercializing Personal Health Information: A Critical Qualitative Content Analysis of Documents Describing Proprietary Primary Care Databases in Canada

• Enterprise Healthcare Physician Services in Canada: An Environmental Scan

  2022

• The commercialization of patient data in Canada: ethics, privacy and policy

• (Pre-print) The nature and extent of enterprise virtual care physician services in Canada: an environmental scan

  2020

• Drivers of the opioid crisis: An appraisal of financial conflicts of interest in clinical practice guidelines panels at the peak of opioid prescribing 

• Clinical Decision Support Systems for Opioid Prescribing for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain in Primary Care: A Scoping Review 

Commentaries

• January 2025, HealthyDebate, We need virtual care that cares for everybody

• February 2024, Toronto Star, Virtual care has led to a data gold rush for your personal and health information

Media

• May 2025, CBC, Medical data for sale?

• May 2025, CBC, Millions of Canadians’ health data available for sale to pharmaceutical companies, study shows

• May 2025, Globe and Mail, Health-data companies selling access to patient records, study says

• December 2024, CFP Podcast, Virtual Care

• December 2024, CBC, He diagnosed his rare disease using Google. Now he hopes AI can do the same.

• February 2024, CBC, Many virtual care apps pushing products, selling personal data, research finds

• February 2024, Newstalk 1010, New study finds that virtual care companies are putting patient data at risk.

• March 2023, CBC, From virtual care apps to AI algorithms: the trouble with data collection in healthcare

• February 2023, OurCare, The Role of Virtual Care in Ontario with Dr. Ewan Affleck, Dr. Brett Belchetz and Dr. Sheryl Spithoff

• April 2021, Globe and Mail, The dark side of Canada’s shift to corporate-driven health care

• February 2019, Toronto Star, Privacy commissioner to investigate sale of health data