The Graham Seed Fund is structured to support research that is closely connected to the realities of health-care delivery. By fostering direct collaboration between University of Waterloo researchers and community-based providers, the program creates a shared environment for identifying needs, shaping research questions and developing evidence that is relevant to practice.
As part of the CareNext Coalition (CareNext), the Graham Seed Fund plays a key role in connecting academic research with health system priorities across the Waterloo Region. CareNext, established in 2024 as a partnership between Waterloo and the Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN), provides a platform that aligns system needs, clinical insight and research capability.
"The Graham Seed Fund brings health-care organizations and researchers together around real system needs. This round focuses on AI readiness in community care-generating the insights required to support safe and effective adoption. Through CareNext, we are aligning frontline priorities with research expertise to strengthen readiness and inform how AI can be meaningfully integrated into care delivery," says Danina Kapetanovic, Vice-President, Innovation and AI Strategy, Chief Health Innovation Officer at WRHN and the University of Waterloo; and leader for CareNext.
Aligned with Waterloo's Global Futures priorities, researchers are working in collaboration with local hospitals, Ontario Health Teams and community partners to address complex health system challenges through applied, practice-informed research.
This round of the Graham Seed Fund invited projects that examine the factors shaping responsible AI adoption in community care, generate evidence on readiness and develop approaches that can inform both policy and implementation. The selected projects reflect a strong commitment to partnership, with researchers working directly alongside WRHN, Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health, KidsAbility, Brightshores Health System, Schlegel Villages and regional Ontario Health Teams.
Seven Waterloo researchers have each received $35,000 to support this work. The funded projects and their team leads are listed below.
Human-AI teaming in rural hospitals: Human factors evaluation and readiness assessment for the co-design of an AI system for a patient access and flow unit
- Catherine Burns (Researcher)
- Brightshores Health System (Partner)
Building confidence and collaboration for generative AI use in community-based health care
- Karen Cochrane (Researcher)
- KidsAbility (Partner)
Chemotherapy drug wastage control
- Fatih Safa Erenay (Researcher)
- Waterloo Regional Health Network
A socio-technical readiness framework for AI-driven data capture and workflow analysis in procedural community care settings: The case of AFib ablation
- Sharon Ferguson (Researcher)
- Waterloo Regional Health Network
Community-care AI readiness: Data, ethics, and culture for patient monitoring in the Waterloo Region
- Moojan Ghafurian (Researcher)
- Waterloo Regional Health Network; Skopien (Partners)
Experiential AI literacy through use case discovery and implementation
- Edith Law (Researcher)
- Waterloo Regional Health Network; Schlegel Villages; Cambridge North Dumfries Ontario Health Team; Ottawa Valley Ontario Health Team; KW4 Ontario Health Team (Partners)
Co-designing a genAI readiness and safeguards evaluation toolkit for community mental health-care settings
- Jim Wallace (Researcher)
- Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health (Partner)
The Graham Seed Fund is made possible by the J.W. Graham Trust Endowment Fund. Visit the Transformative Health Technologies website to learn more about the fund.
