IBT College’s Healthcare team was honoured with an Innovation and Entrepreneurship award for working with the healthcare industry to drive innovation and economic development. Award winners included: IBT College’s Vice-President James Rice, Andrea Kurth, Kristen Peach, Jen Ferrier, Melanie Kowalski and Ken Rice.
The IBT College team were among 22 selected in the province for the Minister’s Awards of Excellence, out of over 500 nominations received.
The Awards of Excellence recognize the exceptional performance of faculty, staff and graduate students from colleges, universities, private career colleges and Indigenous Institutes across Ontario.
During the onset of the pandemic, when the healthcare industry was facing a critical shortage, IBT College developed a Virtual Healthcare program that expanded into utilizing ground-breaking Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality tools to rapidly train workers. In addition, IBT College launched the Home Care Staffing Forum to bring the industry together to discuss Recruitment, Retention, Training and Technology. The Forums were held throughout the province.
“We are grateful that the talents and skills of the Healthcare team and their tireless efforts to go beyond just building capacity, but also to bring the industry to together and improve the way we will teach healthcare workers in the future,” stated IBT College President Joe Shokour.
“It has been an incredibly journey from conception to creation to implementation. Watching the programs grow and branch out into all kinds of creative areas has been very rewarding. My team has been incredible. They worked diligently and quickly through a variety of challenges. I sincerely appreciate the Province and Minister Jill Dunlop taking the time to recognize the incredible achievement of our team,” stated award-winner James Rice
This year’s winners received a certificate signed by Minister Dunlop and were honoured at an Award’s ceremony on February 6, 2023.
Andrea Kurth, Project Manager stated, “I am thankful to be recognized for being a part of rethinking the delivery of education in the healthcare sector. It has been so much fun to see our vision come to life and I am excited to continue on the development of these programs.” Jennifer Ferrier, a content creator for the program, said, “It is an honor to receive the Minister’s Award of Excellence in the category of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for our work in virtual training for healthcare workers and the Home Care Staffing Forum. The work we do is amazing, seeing the change and support to our Healthcare Sector, the knowledge sharing amongst our students and the ability to provide those utilizing virtual training. Our work with Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, a variety of technology and the strength and focus of our team has made receiving this award so appreciated.”
