Simona Chiose

U of T’s dental clinics in the spotlight during federal minister's tour

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:09:32 +0000

U of T’s dental clinics in the spotlight during federal minister's tour

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 04/05/2023 - 10:09

Cutline

Ahmed Hussen, Canada's minister of housing and diversity and inclusion, recently took a tour of the Faculty of Dentistry dental clinics, which serve about 15,000 patients a year (photos by Johnny Guatto)

Simona Chiose

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Dentistry

A commitment by the ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Dentistry to provide access to dental services for all populations can help support the new Canadian Dental Care Plan, said Ahmed Hussen, Canada's minister of housing and diversity and inclusion, during a recent tour of the faculty’s dental clinics.

Hussen’s March 31 visit followed the announcement in this year’s federal budget of multiple measures to improve access to dentistry in Canada, including the launch of the Dental Care Plan. Once the plan is fully phased in, all families without insurance and a family income of up to $90,000 are expected to receive care.

U of T’s clinic, the only dental school in the country to offer all 10 dental specialties, has been closing the gap in access to dental care for the past 50 years. The clinic serves approximately 15,000 patients a year and saw 93,000 patient visits last year. More than 400 doctor of dental surgery students and 80 dental specialist graduate students receive training in working with vulnerable populations. Services are provided at lower cost than in private dental practices.

“The ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Dentistry is a critical component of the dental safety-net system to everyone in our communities,” said Professor Jim Yuan Lai, vice-dean of education at the Faculty of Dentistry. “Through our clinics, we are closing the gap in dental care for the one in five Canadians who face barriers to access and preventing poor health outcomes that can lead to more expensive interventions.”

The Faculty of Dentistry’s dental clinics also accept patient referrals from private dental practices. Information on becoming a patient is available on their website.

Ahmed Hussen, left, speaks with Professor Jim Yuan Lai, right, while students at U of T’s Faculty of Dentistry look on (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Hussen visited several learning clinics operated by the faculty and spoke to students about how their training prepares them to attend to the health needs of vulnerable populations. The new national plan could increase the number of patients who receive services through the clinics, he said.

“This is amazing work that is being done here and, as the federal government, we want to make sure this work is supported – and one of the ways to do that is to empower and enable more people to access this wonderful service.

“That’s why we are proud to introduce the Canadian Dental Care Plan, which will provide coverage for up to nine million uninsured Canadians when fully implemented. With this plan, no Canadian will ever again have to choose between maintaining their oral health and paying their bills,” Hussen said.

Ahmed Hussen watches a procedure at the Faculty of Dentistry’s dental clinics (photo by Johnny Guatto)

A survey conducted by the faculty in the summer of 2021 showed that 83 per cent of patients who are seen at the clinics earn less than $50,000 annually; are twice as likely to report food insecurity; and are a third less likely to have dental insurance compared to other Canadians. Sixty percent of patients polled reported avoiding dental visits due to cost. Patients visiting the clinics came from across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Patients who come in may have multiple issues that have been neglected, said Dave Dunbar, a fourth-year student in the program.

“People often come in with complex cases and you have the opportunity to learn a lot and provide a big improvement in their quality of life, in their eating and speaking and socially,” said Dunbar, who is president of the Dental Students’ Society. “These clinics are imperative to providing health care in this city, where there is a high immigration rate and a big discrepancy in access to care.

“Our clinics help to bridge that gap significantly.”

In addition to the clinics at the faculty, dental students gain experience through rotations at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto Public Health Clinics and youth-focused, community-based clinics.

The faculty is looking to increase the number of patients so students have exposure to the full range of services and needs they will encounter after graduation, Lai said, adding this is an area of potential collaboration with the federal government.

In addition to launching the Canadian Dental Care Plan, the federal budget introduced the Oral Health Access Fund, which proposes to provide $250 million over three years to remove barriers to care, including in rural and remote communities, and investments in collecting and analyzing better data on dental care.

'A really pivotal player': President Meric Gertler on U of T's contribution to Toronto's booming tech scene

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 24 May 2019 14:19:38 +0000

'A really pivotal player': President Meric Gertler on U of T's contribution to Toronto's booming tech scene

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 05/24/2019 - 10:19

Cutline

U of T President Meric Gertler underscored the university’s role in supporting Toronto’s thriving tech industry and the region’s innovation economy during a panel discussion at this week’s Collision conference (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Topic

Artificial Intelligence

Research & Innovation

Startups

Undergraduate Students

Vector Institute

The ��Ƶ is making significant contributions to the thriving Toronto tech industry and the region’s innovation economy, U of T President Meric Gertler told the Collision tech conference Thursday during a panel discussion on how start-ups can prepare for success.

“The university is both a really pivotal player in generating talent, [while] attracting and retaining talent,” said President Gertler.

“That makes a big difference in a city like this.”

He added the university’s goal is to create well-rounded graduates and entrepreneurs who understand customers’ needs and deliver advanced solutions. “We have focused on core competencies we want to develop in our students – things like being able to work well in teams, being able to communicate and collaborate effectively across cultural boundaries,” President Gertler said.

“We are trying to take advantage of the fact that Toronto is such a global city, and our student body is so global, to make sure we develop those capacities in our students.”

The three-day Collision conference wrapped up Thursday. It was the first of three years that the North American tech conference will be hosted in Toronto. Over 25,000 people from 120 countries, 800 investors and over 70 trade missions attended.

Almost 20 U of T start-ups participated in the event, including fintech firm Tenzor AI, and MedMe Health, which offers caregivers and patients help in adhering to medication regimes.

The schedule was packed with talks, seminars and day and evening networking events for investors and start-ups. New partnerships were also hatched, including an expanded collaboration between U of T and LG that will focus on AI applications for businesses.

U of T is building a “highway” between its existing and aspiring entrepreneurship community, President Gertler said (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Across various panels and speeches by the private sector and government, a consensus seemed to emerge: This is Canada’s moment.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau kicked off the event Monday telling the opening night crowd that education and immigration policies are ensuring next-generation companies have the talent they need.

The “Canadian advantage is in providing extraordinarily well educated, hardworking, forward thinking, creative, ambitious Canadians to be part of the global economy,” Trudeau said.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford echoed those comments in remarks Tuesday.

“If you are considering investing in Ontario, the most important thing you should look at is the people,” he said.

“Ontario has the best educated workforce in the world.”

Over the past decade, U of T entrepreneurs have created more than 500 companies and generated more than $1 billion in investment. The university will continue to build on those successes and is now creating a “highway” between its existing and aspiring entrepreneurship community, according to President Gertler.

For example, U of T recently launched a new $5-million True Blue Fund for entrepreneurship that targets early-stage start-ups.

U of T entrepreneurs like Allen Lau, co-founder and CEO of story-sharing platform Wattpad, with more than 65 million users, said the quality and global experience of university graduates in Toronto, combined with the city’s regional and national connections to other tech ecosystems, are keeping tech companies in Canada.

“Almost from day one we were able to build a workforce that can support our global ambitions,” said Lau, a U of T alumnus.

He added that about half the company’s workforce speaks another language, a crucial benefit for a company with an international customer base.

“I don’t believe that many cities in the world can do that. I am not saying Toronto is the only one, but Toronto is probably the best one to do that,” he told the audience.

Other speakers noted that Canada and Toronto will continue to be top destinations for the tech industry thanks in part to initiatives like the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

“Our AI ecosystem has done a really good job of putting Toronto on the map as a cluster of excellence,” said Candice Faktor, a managing partner with Faktory Ventures, a Toronto-based early-stage tech fund.

“[University Professor Emeritus] ��Ƶ and his lab and his descendants have become world recognized … So the corporate R&D labs are being set up here, global talent is really interested in working with the best here,” she said of Vector’s chief scientific advisor who is sometimes dubbed the “godfather of deep learning.”

Twenty-five thousand jobs related to AI are anticipated in the Toronto region alone, according to Bianca Miller of the Vector Institute. To keep up, universities and companies will have to graduate new cohorts in the field while upskilling current employees, she said.

Failing to make those investments will lead to missed opportunities, Miller added, pointing to estimates that AI will add as much as US$15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

U of T and AI: Faculty members on their research and its impact

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 15:20:13 +0000

U of T and AI: Faculty members on their research and its impact

noreen.rasbach Wed, 10/24/2018 - 11:20

Cutline

“Human movement and behaviour are unpredictable, so we are seeing if robots can adapt and react to that,” says Goldie Nejat, an associate professor in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Simona Chiose

Topic

Global Lens

Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Information

Research & Innovation

Rotman School of Management

U of T Scarborough

More time to interact with patients, improved efficiency in health-care delivery, and new global communities of exchange and communication: According to ��Ƶ researchers, these are just some of the positive outcomes of artificial intelligence.

“AI has the power to change the way we live and work, making more human capital available to focus on creativity and innovation,” says Cristina Amon, dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

Artificial intelligence and automation, and the impact of advanced technology on business strategy and workforce demand and supply, is one of the themes that will be discussed at this year’s Ontario Economic Summit. Together with leaders in the private, public and not-for-profit sector, U of T researchers and entrepreneurs will be showcasing how they are seizing these opportunities.

Work at U of T is already demonstrating how advances in machine learning can accelerate gains in health, education, communication and quality of life, as well as the importance of educating students to think about the ethics of the technology.

Fahad Razak, assistant professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
Team member, General Medicine Inpatient Initiative (GEMINI)

What makes some patients more likely to have a poor prognosis after being discharged from hospital?

The answer lies somewhere in the three billion data points now included in the General Medicine Inpatient Initiative (GEMINI) health database, says Razak, who is also an internist at St. Michael’s Hospital.

GEMINI is the result of a team of physicians, public health advocates, and data scientists working to standardize much of the information hospitals collect about patients across seven Ontario hospitals. By tracking and comparing data on admission, discharge and tests, among other metrics, GEMINI will lead to more accurate predictions about the outcomes for individual patients and the ability to intervene to improve them.

Three billion individual pieces of data “is the kind of volume we need to develop predictions,” Razak says.

But the process of standardizing the data from different hospitals has also revealed gaps in the information now collected.

Because of privacy and confidentiality concerns, hospitals don’t collect income, education or second-language status data. Those characteristics, however, are important variables affecting health, Razak says.

“Many problems have to be overcome before the data can become a public policy tool.”

Simona Chiose

U of T’s dental clinics in the spotlight during federal minister's tour

'A really pivotal player': President Meric Gertler on U of T's contribution to Toronto's booming tech scene

U of T and AI: Faculty members on their research and its impact

Read more: U of T has 'key role to play' in developing and implementing new AI technologies