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HOLISTIC RESEARCH CANADA
Practice-Based Evidence | Feedback-Informed Treatment | Clinical Data & AI Governance
For over 20 years we have helped health organizations answer one question: is care actually working?
NHS Medipex Innovation Award · Certified FIT Trainer · Systems deployed across 25+ countries and 40+ languages
ABOUT HRC
Founded in 2004, Holistic Research Canada works with professional associations, health authorities, research institutes, non-profits, and digital health organizations across Canada, the US, the UK and internationally.
Our work has grown from measuring outcomes to governing the data those outcomes produce — consent, AI-derived data, and clinician agency in data-informed care.
LEADERSHIP
For a decade Cindy led MyOutcomes, taking it from start-up to deployment across 25+ countries and 40+ languages — one of only two digital psychotherapy outcome systems listed in the U.S. SAMHSA National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices. She pioneered the UK version, receiving the NHS Medipex Innovation Award for Mental Health and Wellbeing.
As the first woman accredited in Feedback-Informed Treatment training with the International Centre for Clinical Excellence they have led the design and implementation of many training initiatives, including FIT eLearning, an interactive 12 CE online psychotherapy training program.
As founding Chair of the Overcome Ethics Committee, they built the governance framework for an international committee spanning eight countries — establishing review workflows, risk thresholds, and escalation pathways for digitally mediated counselling research.
Through Holistic Research Canada, they continue to advance practice-based evidence, clinical data governance, and responsible innovation in digital mental health. Cindy leads MyTOMS Early Innovators Program, a therapy outcome monitoring system featured in the premier of the eMHIC Collaborative Directory.
In 2026, they have contributed to national and international digital mental health and AI governance initiatives — including the Global Dialogue on AI Governance and, by invitation, the Mental Health Commission of Canada and eMental Health International Collaborative, Global Leadership Exchange on transforming eMental Health across borders. In April, they founded the Clinical Data Governance community and published the Clinical Data Governance Checklist: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.19765798
ORCID: 0009-0001-5663-223X
WHAT WE DO
From FIT training to therapy outcome monitoring and AI/data governance, we help organizations turn feedback and clinical data into safer, more effective care.
Feedback-Informed Treatment (FIT) Training
FIT training that helps clinicians, organizations, and health systems strengthen therapeutic relationships and improve outcomes through the ethical use of client feedback, practice-based evidence, and continuous learning. Unlike most professional development, FIT training produces evidence of whether it worked — because what clinicians learn is how to measure their own effectiveness.
Therapy Outcome Monitoring Systems (TOMS) Consulting
TOMS rarely fail on design — they fail on adoption, and our focus is the workflow, reporting, and implementation decisions that determine whether a system is still in use a year later. Our work enables organizations to build learning health systems in which clients, clinicians, and leaders continuously learn from feedback to improve outcomes, strengthen therapeutic alliances, and advance equitable, data-informed care.
Request a TOMS Collaboration Call
Clinical Data & AI Governance Support
AI in clinical care generates new data from client records — summaries, risk flags, scores — that move between vendors and jurisdictions, rarely reflected in consent forms. The frameworks haven't caught up.
We help organizations map what's happening, align consent with it, and set accountability before adopting.
Those who can describe what happens to their client data adopt AI deliberately. Those who can't are guessing.
The HRC DIFFERENCE
Where Clinical Practice Meets AI Governance
Most people enter this field from one side of the equation: research, technology, clinical practice, or policy. Cindy Hansen and Holistic Research Canada work at the intersection of all four.
By integrating real-world clinical data, PROMs and PREMs, clinical dashboards, implementation science, therapist development, and AI governance, we help organizations build learning systems that improve outcomes while preserving trust, agency, and the therapeutic relationship.
WHAT CLIENTS AND COLLEAGUES SAY
Danilo T. Pérez-Rivera
Founder & CEO, XSync Inc.
“Your ongoing work on NLP-based therapy outcome monitoring, your ‘Equity Equation’ framework, and your leadership in international AI ethics initiatives represent the kind of synergistic impact we strive to support.”
David Prescott
Director of Acquisitions and Training, Safer Society Press
"Cindy has done amazing work in this area and understands the processes of feedback-informed treatment inside and out."
VP, International Digital Mental Health Platform
"Working with Cindy we've transformed our aggregate stats reporting. Their leadership made our reports more reliable, transparent, and actionable. Thanks to their vision, insights are being tailored to every stakeholder—from clinicians to funders—and enhanced layouts, interpretive columns, and visual aids make complex data easy for everyone to understand and act upon."
RESOURCES & OPPORTUNITIES
FIT Practitioner Guides
Free for site members — practical guides for clinicians using feedback and outcome data in routine practice.
MyTOMS
An open-source common-factors outcome monitoring system: client-facing PROM and PREM collection, practitioner administration, and a predictive Session Progress Index. Psychometric validation ongoing.
Clinical Data Governance — research community
Founded April 2026, our open-access research community on Zenodo publishes on governing clinical data in AI-enabled care — including the Clinical Data Governance Checklist, which reached 500+ Canadian practitioners within a month of release, and policy briefs in English and French. Over 100 views a month.
Speaking
Beyond the Hype: Human Connection, Equity, and Clinical Judgment in an AI-Shaped Future — Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, 2026. 250 live attendees, accredited for 1 CEC.
Global Mental Health Equity: Tackling Biases in Digital Mental Health Assessment Tools — opening online session, 10th Digital Mental Health Global Congress.
A Conversation about Feedback -Informed Treatment and Deliberate Practice in Therapy - Social Science Week , Australia, 2025
Effective Therapist Blog
Advancing Outcome Informed Care Since 2012
