Irfan Dhalla

Expert Overview

Irfan Dhalla is an expert on issues of health, medicine, health care policy and Covid vaccines.

In his role as Vice-President, Care Experience and Equity, Irfan works with colleagues at Unity Health Toronto to help the organization achieve its vision: The Best Care Experiences. Created Together. Irfan also continues to practice general internal medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital, one of Unity Health Toronto’s 3 sites.

Irfan is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. He is also a co-chair on the Canadian government's own COVID-19 Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel.

From 2013 to 2019, Irfan was a Vice-President at Health Quality Ontario, a government agency established by the Excellent Care for All Act in 2011. He and his colleagues there transformed the way the government agency supported a health care system that serves 14 million people. He oversaw the work the organization does to support HQO’s recommendations about which health care services should be publicly funded, and he also led the development of a new program to make recommendations about standards of care.

He obtained a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from the University of British Columbia, a medical degree from the University of Toronto, a master’s degree in health policy, planning and financing from the London School of Economics, which he pursued as a Commonwealth Scholar, and a master’s degree in health care management from Harvard University.

Irfan's work has been recognized with awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health and the Toronto Star.