CHEO’s long-term vision includes two distinct, yet intertwined components:
- a fully integrated system of care for children and youth in our community – extending our expertise far outside our walls and into the large geographic area we serve, and
- the further development of research and teaching to ensure a better future for children and youth.
Community Vision
CHEO’s long-term vision for the care of children and youth in the community is focused on extending its expertise outside of its current walls to help care for more patients, provide a higher standard of care, and enable care closer to home.
Like all hospitals, CHEO faces challenges but providing high-quality care for children and youth is always the top priority. CHEO works to take this health expertise and extend it beyond the brick and mortar of its buildings – to keep giving back to the community in the same, dedicated way that they continue to give to us,
By working with the broader community to build a fully integrated system of care, CHEO would help provide parents with a single point of access, close to home, from which the care of their child would be coordinated. With the support of CHEO, kids would receive care locally through their school, a local health center, the local hospital or emergency room, or telehealth. If they need more specialized care, they would be referred to CHEO in a coordinated and seamless way.
The hospital laid out a roadmap to make this vision a reality. The roadmap has six program areas which include In-Community Pediatric Health Centers, a Partnership Program, the Emergency Pathways Program, an Outreach Program and a Regional Maternal-Newborn Program, in addition to expanding its Telemedicine and Telephsyciatriatry services.
For the In-community Pediatric Health Centers, for instance, CHEO will work with community hospitals to help them establish local health centers for kids. Although most community hospitals already treat children and youth, most do not have a formal pediatric program that helps ensure that the unique needs of this age group are taken into account and that age-specific best-practices are used. Click here to download an article on how CHEO's partnership with the Renfrew Victoria Hospital has successfully extended our expertise into the community.
The Emergency Pathways Program is another good example of this vision in practice. In 2007, CHEO began working with emergency departments across the region to train their staff and standardize the use of leading pediatric health practices – helping to increase the community’s capacity to meet pediatric emergency health needs. CHEO hopes to further expand this program.
Similarly, the regional maternal-newborn program, which is being put in place under the joint leadership of CHEO and The Ottawa Hospital, will ensure that the highest standards of care for mothers and babies are available throughout our region.
In expanding the community’s capacity to deliver quality pediatric care, CHEO will be able to expand its own ability to provide the more complex and specialized care for children and youth with serious conditions.
This long-term vision for community health care was developed in consultation with hundreds of patients, parents and community partners. It has been approved by the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN).
Teaching & Research Vision
CHEO is an academic health science center, providing education to future pediatricians and students in most health professions, and conducting leading edge research on children’s health issues.
To ensure that children and youth continue to receive the best available care, each year CHEO provides education and training to hundreds of students in medicine and all health care disciplines, and constantly investigates new treatments, new cures, new approaches for the treatment of those diseases that affect children and youth.
To train future professionals and find new cures, to provide the most complex care, we need to attract the best and the brightest, offer them leading edge technology and provide an environment that will allow them to shine.
CHEO will continue to strengthen its relationships with the University of Ottawa and other academic institutions, and increase its capacity to train other health care workers on CHEO-care for children and youth.
In addition, through the CHEO Foundation Big Steps campaign, CHEO hopes to expand the current capacity of its Research Institute for leading-edge research in select fields that will make a difference to the kids of our community.