Sukumar Gugananthan is the Director of Enterprise Analytics and Health Information Management at Southlake Health, where he provides strategic leadership for Patient Registration, Central Scheduling, Health Information Management, and the Enterprise Analytics teams. He brings over 15 years of progressive experience in the Canadian healthcare system, including a decade in Health Information Management, and has led Southlake’s Enterprise Analytics Department since 2021.
In his role, Sukumar oversees an integrated data life cycle that spans initial scheduling and registration through to coding, abstracting, and data quality, and ultimately to the use of that data for organizational learning and improvement. By aligning these functions, he is strengthening the accuracy, accessibility, and use of data to drive operational excellence and advance Quintuple Aim outcomes—improving population health, patient and provider experience, equity, and value.
Sukumar works closely with clinical, operational, and executive leaders to embed analytics into decision-making. He holds a BSc in Integrated Science from Carleton University and is in the final year of the Master of Health Administration program at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME).
Day 1: Dec 5, 2023
2:30 pm
CASE STUDY: THE CULTURE OF DATA
Why Strategy Alone Isn’t Enough
Ontario’s health system is at an inflection point. For decades, hospitals have absorbed capacity gaps across the continuum-an unsustainable “catch-all” that produces poor integrated care experiences and outcomes. Changing this hospital-first culture demands more than a plan: it requires systems thinking, strategic foresight, and a data-driven culture that moves decisions closer to the point of care. It also requires establishing a common collective vision and successful data initiatives through trust, empowerment and leadership at every level.
This case study explores how a single, composite metric termed Population Avoidable Days (PAD) is helping to unify leaders, clinicians, and partners around a shared “True North” focused on reducing inpatient bed days that don’t need to be in hospital.
You’ll leave with practical solutions on how to:
- Translate data into daily behaviours, align incentives across the ecosystem, and demonstrate how Learning-Health System practices turn insight into sustained action.
- Leverage absolute (not relative) measures like PAD to motivate improvements by frontline teams.
- Uphold patient-centered care when perceptions conflict with core values.
- Navigate structural barriers and system limitations to desired outcomes
Grow a culture that reliably turns evidence into practice, and practice into freed capacity and improved outcomes.
Day 2: Dec 6, 2023
