Planning for Seniors Services in Townsend, Ontario
We assisted the volunteer board at Parkview Meadows Retirement Village to expand their campus of seniors services to include a new long term care facility. Our services included developing capital and operating financial pro-formas (creating the business case for moving the project forward); negotiating with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care regarding transfer of beds within Haldimand County; coordinating the successful application for new long term care beds from the Ministry; developing the pre-construction staffing model and operating budget; developing the functional program for the new wing and advising the architect in facility design. The new 64-bed wing opened in 2005.
During this period, we also worked with Haldimand County council to complete a demographic analysis to determine the appropriate number of beds for a new municipal long term care facility. Our work also included completion of the functional program.
We have been similarly involved in various aspects of the planning and design of over two dozen seniors and health care facilities across Ontario. Past projects include long term care and assisted living facilities, seniors day treatment centres, a complex continuing care/rehabilitation centre, a Community Health Centre, a regional children's rehabilitation center, an integrated children's day care centre, an outpatient assessment center and health-care teaching facilities.
Implementing Inter-Professional Healthcare Education (IPE) at a Community College
As Project Manger, we worked with George Brown College, a community college located in downtown Toronto, to collaboratively plan and implement an innovative approach to educating new health care professionals. This involved over 21 disciplines within Nursing, Oral Health, Wellness and Health Promotion, and Health Services Management and Technology.
Working with senior management, faculty and students, we developed the Inter-Professional Education (IPE) strategy which included 3 key components:
- Creating the foundation for future IPE learning activity through the collaborative development of an IPE Program Learning Framework and Learning Outcomes;
- Planning unique applied learning spaces, including the new Inter-Professional Learning Clinic at Casa Loma which opened in 2005, to support inter-professional applied learning (Controlled Learning Applied Environments);
- Developing new IPE student experiences by engaging Health Sciences and Nursing faculty through an innovative IPE Request for Proposals and an inter-professional care planning pilot project involving students and faculty from six disciplines.
Our work has provided a foundation for the development of new IPE curriculum, which will provide opportunities for students of different disciplines to learn about each other, to learn together about team work, and to explore together and share from their personal and professional perspectives, various common ethical, moral, legal and policy issues that affect everyone.
Elements of our work with the College are reflected in four papers which we co-authored, and which were presented at international conferences in 2005 and 2006:
Creating an Innovative Long Term Care Teaching Centre
Working with Fleming College and the St. Joseph's Care Group in Peterborough, we helped articulate the concept for the innovative new Institute for Healthy Aging and to facilitate a unique partnership between the two organizations in the joint development of an innovative new long term care teaching facility built on the college campus. St. Joseph's at Fleming opened in 2004.
Our work included strategic planning with the volunteer board of St. Joseph's Care Group; directing the functional program and developing the pre-construction operating budget and staffing model for the new facility; and design consultation with the architect. We worked with Fleming College in developing the criteria for a successful partnership and assisted in recruiting St. Joseph's Care Group as the eventual partner in this unique seniors development.
Program Evaluations
We have participated in such program evaluations as: a review of the City of Toronto's Public Health Department as the lead agency for the Toronto Pre-school Speech and Language Program (under contract to Liz Yorke & Associates); evaluation of the province-wide Job Connect program under the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (under contract to Parker Management Consulting Inc.); evaluation of changes to the Long Term Care program for the Department of Health, Province of Nova Scotia (under contract to Liz Yorke & Associates); and review of the Guelph-Wellington Association for Community Living (under contract to Berkeley Consulting Group).
Preparation of Successful Submissions to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care
We have prepared and directed numerous successful submissions for capital and operating funding, including new long term care beds and/or annual operating dollars for supportive housing programs and, most recently, new funding (for George Brown College) to create a Hub of Excellence in Nursing Education for Rural and Remote Ontario.
We have also provided project management services for The Salvation Army, Territorial Headquarters, directing a Request for Proposals process to procure administrative and clinical software and hardware for new long term care facilities in Ottawa and Toronto.
Ontario Health Professions Legislative Advisory Council (HPRAC), (under contract to Liz Yorke & Associates)
We assisted Liz Yorke in evaluating and advising on the merits of a proposal by the Ontario College of Pharmacists to create a new health profession, Registered Pharmacy Technician. Our activities included conducting background research, implementing key informant and stakeholder consultations, evaluating the proposal against set criteria and developing recommendations to HPRAC.
City of Greater Sudbury, Action Plan for the Golden Age Opportunity (under contract to PricewaterhouseCoopers)
We assisted PWC by implementing key informant and community consultations and cataloguing health and social service agencies serving seniors as a component of PWC's broader economic development plan for the City of Greater Sudbury.
Planning Rehabilitation Space to Support Collaboration and Client Outcomes
We worked with George Jeffrey Children's Centre in Thunder Bay to plan an innovative replacement facility. Our work included preparing the Business Case for Redevelopment for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care; directing the Functional Program for the new facility; consultations with the Ministry of Children and Youth Services; ongoing Master Plan consultation with the architect.
We leveraged the facility planning process to transform the organizational culture toward greater collaboration among staff. Representatives of all staff were directly involved in the functional programming/planning process, providing an opportunity for the end users to discuss and debate the merits and impact of various design options.
The building program reflects a vision of client-centredness, collaboration and sharing, flexibility and efficient utilization of space.
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