1Door4Care

Meet Maeve, Grant and Calista Danson

Meet the Danson family — Maeve, 5, Grant, 7, and Calista, 11. Three children who have relied on CHEO’s services and programs throughout their lives, each with a unique health-care journey. For the Danson family, CHEO has been so much more than a health-care provider. It is part home, part family, part community.

CHEO has been by their side during some of their happiest moments, like when Maeve — who was diagnosed with a condition that limits her physical mobility — took her first steps. CHEO has been there during some of the family’s trying times, too. As the Danson’s agree, you really get to know everyone at CHEO and they get to know you. CHEO is like family. Or as Maeve simply puts it, “I love CHEO!”

Over the years, the Danson’s have relied on a wide range of CHEO services, including complex care, rehabilitation, CHEO school, mental health services, emergency care, and more. Owing to the complexities of their children’s care, the Danson’s have seen just how much CHEO does to meet its vision of providing the best life for every child and youth. They have also met obstacles and seen firsthand the limitations that come with a fragmented health-care system.

For their youngest, Maeve, the family was met with a fractured delivery model of the essential health-care services their daughter relies on. “There were no referrals planned when Maeve was born, despite knowing she would be born with physical limitations and that the first year was essential for her development,” her mother, Keira said. “It didn’t feel like there was a plan between the various care providers to wrap around Maeve and our needs.”

It is this disconnect between essential services that adds to the burden on already overburdened families.

CHEO has a plan. One that will consolidate and connect clinical services under one roof, to provide the best integrated approach to care.

When envisioning what 1door4care could mean for their children, Keira shared, “I picture a bright and comfortable place to come and play because that’s how kids connect. Allowing kids to be kids.” Clinton, their father added, “A place where kids can share feelings and concerns so they can better express themselves when they’re older.”

1door4care will do exactly that. Through purpose-built design, 1door4care will create a bright and welcoming space that is especially for the unique needs of every child and youth. Whether it’s healing for children and youth with mental illness or improving comfort and privacy, 1door4care will have every family in mind. That way, Maeve, Grant and Calista can focus on being kids, and the emotional drain experienced by their parents can be alleviated. 

Meet Ivy Duke

Meet Ivy Duke, almost 5 years old. Ivy has relied on CHEO services and programs since being diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that affects physical mobility. Ivy is kindhearted, driven and energetic, and does not let her physical limitations get in the way.

CHEO has been a constant in Ivy’s life. It is where she attends school, laughs, plays, makes friends, and belongs to a community. The services CHEO provides, and the team providing them, have been an extension of home for both Ivy and her family.

Still, Ivy’s journey has been complicated.

Since the onset of her journey, she’s experienced a siloed approach to aspects of her care. For families like the Dukes, this can lead to delays and a frustrating search for answers. “Having a more umbrella approach to health-care may have mitigated some of our wait times and some of our stresses,” says Kate, Ivy’s mom. This delivery model of care causes unnecessary stress and burden on families.

Being seen in silos meant everything happened as an independent event. “In hindsight, when you understand it’s a neurological condition, then you know they weren’t all independent events — they were all stemming from the same health-care challenge,” adds Kate.

To the Dukes, these were the biggest barriers they faced: identifying the problem and getting access to the care Ivy needed, quickly.

Knowing the burden the current health-care system delivery model puts on already overburdened families, CHEO has a plan to address the challenges many families face. The solution starts with a single door.

1door4care will help families by increasing service capacity, consolidating, and connecting clinical services under one roof to better meet the needs of children and youth.

Having experienced the challenges in the current system, Kate summarized what 1door4care would mean in practice for families like hers. “I think 1door4care will support families across the continuum. It’s the overarching view that there is integration across different lines of health-care services in their support for a family.”

1door4care will do exactly that, removing silos and helping children and youth like Ivy live their best lives.

Meet Amy Lawford

Meet Amy Lawford. Born with a physical disability, Amy’s health-care journey began with CHEO as a baby. While Amy has relied on CHEO services over the last 18 years, CHEO has gone beyond being a health-care provider to her — she has been introduced to a community, attended school, and built long-lasting friendships there.

Like in any journey, Amy has met challenges along the way. She has been faced with equipment, services, and spaces not always designed to support her needs.

“Accessibility has been a real challenge. It would be great to see a more accessible space, in every meaning of the word,” says Amy. “It would be great to go beyond accessibility standards and build a space that is more colourful, inviting, inclusive.”

Now beginning her transition from CHEO to the next chapter of her life, she hopes the system in which CHEO operates can continue to evolve and grow to meet the needs of children and youth like her by addressing some of the challenges.
CHEO’s vision is to provide the best life for every child and youth. While CHEO’s service providers will continue to uphold this promise, they desperately need more resources to meet the unique needs of the 40,000 families in Eastern Ontario who rely on their services.

CHEO has a plan, and the solution starts with a single door.

1door4care will mean fewer doors for children and youth like Amy to go through. Not only does that mean fewer headaches and frustrations caused by outdated facilities and lack of equipment, it also means an inclusive space that meets the unique needs of every child and youth. By customizing a space for children with special needs to optimize their mobility and safety, 1door4care will allow children to move through their health-care journey with greater ease and fewer frustrations.

Having accessed CHEO’s services for 18 years, Amy can see what the 1door4care vision will mean for other children and youth. “1door4care makes you feel like everything is going to be okay,” she says. That’s CHEO’s plan: to wrap around every child and youth. And while CHEO will no longer be Amy’s primary health-care provider, CHEO will always feel like an extension of home.

Meet Owen Pinet, a joyful and resilient 5-year-old, with a smile that lights up a room. Owen’s health care journey began at a very young age, after a failed newborn screening test for hearing brought him and his family to CHEO in search of an explanation.

Owen’s family are no strangers to CHEO. Over the years, Owen has had countless medical tests, surgeries, appointments with various specialists, and ongoing check-ups. It has been more than any one child or family should ever have to endure. The entire first year of Owen’s life was spent in search of a diagnosis, with frequent visits to various specialists across the city with no common approach or background history on his journey. And his medical journey will continue for years to come.

Owen and the rest of his family are not alone. In support of its vision, the best life for every child and youth, CHEO is home away from home for 40,000 families across Eastern Ontario. The clinical services offered by CHEO are not an extravagance — they are a necessity.

The current model of care views complicated stories like Owen’s through a singular lens. That means the complexities of each child’s care can be overlooked. As Owen’s mother, Julie Huot, tells it, “the struggle we’ve been faced with when it comes to Owen’s care is how complex he is. Doctors have their own specialties but when it comes down to a child with exceptionalities, no one knows how to stitch it all together. There also seems to be a real disconnect between all the health professionals and no understanding of all the work that has been done to-date.”

Gaps in information and understanding can leave families feeling misunderstood, frustrated and alone. CHEO has a solution.

1Door4Care is more than a new building. It will be a place that wraps around every child to offer integrated care, and create a welcoming space that feels like an extension of home to all families. Julie can focus on being Owen’s mom and living her story, rather than sharing it repeatedly. For Owen’s family, and many others, visits to CHEO can be as frequent as once a week with referrals to clinics located across the city.

“Imagine having so many different appointments for one child. I had to take leave from work to manage it all. It would be great if there was one place we could go and I had one day to pair-up appointments to try and tackle as many as we could in fewer days,” said Julie.

CHEO’s plan for 1Door4Care will do exactly that — bring together seven locations under one roof to deliver seamless care. It will give families more flexibility to work with health-care professionals to combine visits — alleviating the burden and stress so many families face.

Meet Sandra and Andrej

Andrej and his twin brother came into the world at just 24 weeks old, weighing just 720 grams. As an extremely preterm twin (a baby born at less than 28 gestation), only Andrej survived. He fought for his life for almost four months until finally, against all odds, Andrej was ready to go home.

“I used to have this big black binder where I kept Andrej’s different health records because he was being seen by so many different doctors, in so many different clinics. At night, before an appointment, I would sit down with my binder while I had dinner because I had to study and make sure I was able to help them understand what was going on and what Andrej needed. In a lot of ways I had to be like his doctor because none of the clinics spoke to each other and the system was really disjointed.”

Families with complex care needs, like Andrej and Sandra, are just one of many reasons CHEO is always working to improve access to care. The 1door4care project will do just that, bringing together seven different locations under one roof specifically designed as a life-changing, integrated care centre for kids and teens with special needs, medical complexity or mental health challenges. 

“As a complex care mom coming to CHEO, I feel like a new door is open to us.”

Read Sandra and Andrej's full story here