Digital Health Canada Award Winners announced at e-Health 2024 Conference

Digital Health Canada Award winners were announced at the e-Health 2024 Conference and Tradeshow, held this year in Vancouver from May 26 -28, 2024. Digital Health Canada annually offers awards in six categories—Digital Health Executive of the Year; Digital Health Leader of the Year; Clinical Innovator of the Year; Community Care Leader of the Year; Emerging Leader of the Year; and Start-Up Innovator of the Year—as well as the Steven Huesing Scholarship.

This year, Nucleus was thrilled to learn that our very own CEO, Laura Salisbury, was selected for the Community Care Leader of the Year. Every year, this award recognizes up to three individual community care leaders who have shown outstanding leadership in Canada in advancing the use of digital health or virtual health, resulting in improved provider and patient experiences and outcomes. Laura's visionary leadership and unwavering commitment to advancing digital and virtual health in community care has set new standards for excellence, significantly improving provider and patient experiences and outcomes in Canada.

Since assuming the role of CEO of Nucleus in September 2020, Laura has demonstrated unparalleled leadership in the adoption and innovative application of digital health technologies. Her work has been instrumental in transforming the landscape of community care. Under her guidance, Nucleus has seen substantial improvements in operational efficiency and service delivery, exemplified by the enhancement of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and eReferral systems. These advancements have directly contributed to a 15.6% improvement in client experience and a notable increase in base funding for programs and services by 18%, amounting to an additional $3 million.

Laura's approach goes beyond the implementation of technology; she emphasizes the appropriate use of digital and virtual health solutions to foster better health outcomes. Her leadership has ensured that these technologies are leveraged to improve decision-making processes, enhance care coordination, and encourage client engagement. Laura's efforts have not only benefited the clients served by Nucleus, but also set a pioneering example for the broader community care sector, particularly highlighting the significance of digital health in areas that have been traditionally underserved.

"I have had the opportunity to observe Laura's dedication to advancing the use of digital health and virtual health in our community," says Squib Vali, Board Chair, Nucleus. "Laura serves as a role model, champion, and leader in encouraging digital health health to improve knowledge-based practice and the quality of client care."

Congratulations Laura!

To learn more, contact info@nucleusonline .ca

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Building a Scalable Digital Health Ecosystem

October 23, 2026

Over the past four years, Nucleus has moved from using digital systems mainly as administrative tools to using them as part of daily decision-making, service oversight, communication and organizational planning. The shift is not about the tools themselves. It is about how the tools are embedded into operations. “Nucleus has been investing in staff digital literacy, process redesign and change management, recognizing that digital transformation is as much about people and culture as it is about technology. This thoughtful, practical approach positions Nucleus not just to adapt to system changes, but to help shape them,” shared Lori Holloway, CEO, Ontario Community Support Association. “The fundamental change is that Nucleus has shifted from reactive, manual and system-dependent work toward a more proactive, datainformed, digitally enabled operating model. Teams can now monitor and respond to issues – double-booked shifts, scheduling gaps, service-code exceptions, before they become larger problems.” - Shiva Vosoughi, Lead of Digital Health & Privacy A few examples from this year tell the story. 1. The Integrated Decision Support (IDS) platform: administered by the Ontario Hospital Association, gives Nucleus the ability to link internal records with regional data, including hospital admissions and emergency department visits. The result is a sharper picture of clients’ health system journeys and an ability to identify risk earlier. 2. Department-specific dashboards: give frontline managers real-time access to operational and quality indicators. Care Team Leads, Care Coordinators and managers now use data to support attendant performance review, Hospital to Home journey monitoring, scheduling oversight and operational issue identification, moving from reactive problem-solving to proactive operational management. 3. Service code data entry accuracy was sustained at less than 1% error throughout fiscal year 2025- 2026, with an average error rate of approximately 0.17%. It reflects data quality monitoring, staff accountability and operational checkpoints working in concert. 4 . Family Portal: Nucleus’ client and family-facing AlayaCare interface, added a major feature on February 23, 2026: clients and families can now access their personalized care plans through the portal app. The launch followed a careful cross-functional planning effort. The feature represents the next phase of Family Portal evolution: clients move from viewing schedules to seeing their own care goals and care planning information directly. 5. Dial My Calls , a new mass communication system, allows Nucleus to deliver pre-recorded, standardized voice messages to clients and staff in inclement weather and other emergencies. Expanded use cases are being explored. 6 . Custom applications and integrated data: Nucleus has built its own applications and linked previously siloed systems - incident reporting, finance, human resources, scheduling and hospital data - into a single picture spanning client assessments, service utilization and acute-care use. The result is a clear line of sight from frontline service to system-level outcomes like avoidable hospital visits and alternate-level-of-care days, and the ability to map a client's journey before and after Nucleus to advocate for funding and inform regional service planning. 7. Sandbox Initiative : In partnership with the University of Toronto's Sandbox program - a model that brings real organizational challenges into academic-applied research - Nucleus continued its food-insecurity geo-mapping and Adult Day Service business case work, and went further this year by sharing de-identified data on roughly 4,000 clients with student research teams in statistics and human biology. Their independent analyses found that clients rely on the hospital system less after starting with Nucleus, with the strongest effects among the highest-need clients: unscheduled admissions for clients with mental health conditions fell by roughly 40%, and clients with cardiovascular conditions saw inpatient admissions, readmissions and costs drop by 35–55%. These are exploratory analyses that describe patterns rather than prove causation, but they offer external, data-grounded support for what Nucleus sees in practice - that home- and community-based care keeps people healthier at home and eases pressure on acute care. For Nucleus, building a scalable digital health ecosystem means connecting people, processes, and information in ways that strengthen care today and create capacity for tomorrow. By pairing practical technology with staff expertise, strong partnerships, and a commitment to continuous improvement, Nucleus is turning data into action - helping clients remain healthier at home while contributing to a more responsive and sustainable health system.