Yuri Quintana, PhD, is Chief of the Division of Clinical Informatics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre (BIDMC) and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. He obtained a degree in Electrical and Computing Engineering, and a PhD in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo before going on to hold high-level positions at IBM Canada and Watcom.

Prior to his role at BIDMC, Dr. Quintana was a faculty member at Western University, where he served as Director of the New Media Research Lab developing innovations in interactive media and online education. He was also a principal investigator in the Health Evidence Application and Linkage Network (HEALNet), a Canadian health research network, where he focused on consumer health informatics.

Dr. Quintana serves on the editorial board of several journals, including Medical Informatics and the Journal for Cancer Education. He is also an e-health advisor to the Pan American Health Organization. His research focuses on developing technologies and systems that empower communities of healthcare professionals, patients and families. He has developed several award-winning global online and mobile collaboration networks that have transformed healthcare delivery, including:

• InfoSAGE, a family-centered private social network for supporting the care of older adults (Harvard Medical School, with funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality);
• AlicantoT, an online social learning platform for health professionals that is now being used at leading academic hospitals and centres, at Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and
• Cure4Kids, a website from St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, where health professionals around the world collaborate and share information to enhance care for children with cancer.

At HRI, Dr. Quintana is working in collaboration with international colleagues to improve methods to evaluate mental health apps.