Dr. Hicks is a malignant hematologist at St. Michael’s Hospital with an academic focus on quality improvement and innovation. She uses traditional clinical epidemiology methods combined with quality improvement techniques to develop interventions to improve the safety and efficiency of patient care. Thematically her work focuses on understanding drivers of over-utilization in healthcare and on developing strategies to decrease this phenomenon. She also has an interest in understanding and preventing harm from cancer treatments. In particular Dr. Hicks leads research that aims to understand the risk of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) reactivation in cancer patients and to explore how this risk is understood, communicated and managed by clinicians. Dr. Hicks is also an active contributor to the development of clinical practice guidelines. She collaborates in this work with Cancer Care Ontario and the American Society of Hematology. Finally, Dr. Hicks has a large clinical practice in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) associated lymphoma and has led clinical studies in this area.
Dr. Hicks is a member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Committee on Quality and Chairs the Choosing Wisely Task Force for ASH. Within Canada, Dr. Hicks is a member of the National Clinical Leaders Group for the Choosing Wisely Canada Campaign. She is also the St. Michael’s Hospital Lead for a Hospital initiative addressing overutilization. Finally, she is an active member of the Cancer Care Ontario Hematology Disease Site Group and has been an expert contributor to the pan Canadian Oncology Drug Review process.
