Christopher Ford

Background

About Christopher Ford

I’ve spent over 20 years in the Health IT industry helping innovators and business owners hone in on the big ideas, connect the dots, and develop compelling solutions. I have a passion and talent for taking whatever starting point someone has, imagining the really big idea, and figuring out how to bring it to life. My focus on transformative innovation for health and wellness has led me to work with startups to enterprises in the public and private sectors, globally, covering a spectrum of health and wellness solutions. Much of my career was with TELUS Health, where I designed interoperable solutions spanning consumer health, primary care, pharmacy, HIE, virtual care, and health benefits management for both the public and private sectors. It’s here where I also developed a love for working with and mentoring innovative startups as part of several innovation programs. Along the way I’ve developed a particular passion for Digital Health Platforms and Marketplaces and how they can transform health and wellness globally. At the core of this is my love for creation, collaboration, and storytelling, which initially comes from my work in music and theatre, but which I’ve developed and applied in my career in IT to help connect people with ideas, and enable teams to work together to imagine the best possible solutions and figure out how to make them a reality. I’m now developing a practice that puts all of this to good use by focussing on three main topics:* Visioning - Helping businesses discover the really big ideas and developing their stories and strategies to build alignment with all of their stakeholders * Solutioning - Conceptualizing the solution that will enable those really big ideas to come to life, and defining the incremental steps that will lead to a transformative innovation * Platform Thinking - Applying the principles of platform and marketplace design to businesses and their solutions to reimagine the impact and value inherent in their big ideas.