The Ottawa Hospital
We are pleased to share with you The Ottawa Hospital’s 2024-25 Annual Report, a record of the extraordinary work of our many diverse and dedicated teams over the past 12 months.
In those months we have taken bold strides as we lean into our commitment to reshaping the future of health care for our community in the 21st century. For example, we have continued to advance our work designing and building our new 2.5m sq. ft campus, which will serve as a state-of-the-art acute care hub for all of Eastern Ontario when it opens. Yet we are also doing so much more to realize our vision, and to advance the four strategic priorities we outlined in our 2023 Strategic Plan.
We are Enriching the Quality of Care for our Patients with innovative new programs and partnerships. In April we announced a major expansion of the Atlas Alliance, with six additional hospitals joining this transformative initiative that integrates patient electronic health records, reducing administrative hurdles and ensuring better care for patients. We also reviewed and completely restructured our service lines and leadership model as we look beyond the patient in the hospital to care for the person in our community within an integrated health system.
We continue to Ignite the Power of People through a range of programs. Our Family Medicine Clinic has now officially begun offering its services to the family members of staff, in addition to the approximately 3,000 staff who are already being cared for there. We recently replaced our old, outdated intranet with our new user-friendly The Hub, so staff, physicians and residents now have one-stop access to essential tools and information, as well as the latest news and stories documenting all the terrific work we do. And hundreds of staff have gained access to tools and guidance for their own learning and career development through the new TOH Career Pathways Program (CPP) and Centre (CPC).
Our Strategic Plan also commits us to Accelerate Discovery. Over the past 25 years we have helped to develop, trial and commercialize a wide range of new drugs, devices, and treatments that have enabled better patient care at TOH and at hospitals around the world. Yet today our ability to pioneer new medical advances is greater than ever. Through our leading-edge research, innovation and education we continue to find new ways to dramatically improve health outcomes for our community, and to elevate our leadership role globally.
Last but far from least, we continue to Nurture our Social Responsibility. To this end we launched a new all-staff Cultural Safety Learning program to provide respectful and informed care across TOH, to improve patient outcomes, and to ensure that staff and physicians are equipped to deliver respectful and compassionate care to First Nation, Inuit and Métis patients. And we published our first Environmental Sustainability Report, which documents how we’re working to integrate the principles of planetary health into our operations and decision-making processes.
No summary can do justice to the complexity of our collective efforts to care compassionately for our community, nor to the many ways we are innovating to reshape the future of health care for our community in the 21st century, but we invite you to read a few of the stories that are featured in this Annual Report to get a taste of the passion, expertise and commitment that drives us all at The Ottawa Hospital.
Thank you.
Claude Doucet
Chair, Board of Governors, The Ottawa Hospital
Cameron Love
President and CEO of The Ottawa Hospital
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
This past year has been a time of great change, hope and strategic advancement at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI).
With new leadership at the OHRI Board Chair level (Paul Davidson) and CEO level (Rebecca Auer), there has been a lot of learning, teamwork and strategic thinking. We continued to make progress in implementing our Strategic Plan, Designing the Future of Health Care, while also bringing forward exciting new initiatives to strengthen the full spectrum of our research.
We finalized our scientific reorganization under six multidisciplinary Scientific Programs: Acute Care Research; Cancer Research; Inflammation and Chronic Disease; Methodological and Implementation Research; Neuroscience; and Regenerative Medicine. This new structure is increasing alignment with Clinical Departments, while also supporting collaboration and the translation of basic science discoveries into new therapies for patients at The Ottawa Hospital and around the world.
We strengthened our support for clinical research by hiring a full-time Clinical Research Navigator, partnering with the University of Ottawa on an investment in Clinical Research Chairs, enhancing and simplifying how we approach patients about research, and streamlining our processes around contracts and ethics review.
We also continued to invest in our world-class discovery research, including recruitment of new basic scientists in Regenerative Medicine and Cancer Research (three in the last two years) and initiating international searches for three Canada Research Chairs, in partnership with the University of Ottawa.
We implemented new technologies and innovations to enhance our core research facilities and services, ensuring that we can support the full spectrum of research, from basic discovery to the development of new treatments, to clinical trials, implementation and commercialization.
We have much to look forward to in the coming year, as we continue to advance the expansion plan for our world-class Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre, implement new initiatives related to trainees and planetary health, and increase our capacity and efficiency for conducting clinical trials.
Throughout all of these activities, we are guided by the core belief that Research Is Care and should be integrated into everything we do at The Ottawa Hospital. We also recognize that research is hope, not only for our patients and staff, but also for a more prosperous future for all Canadians. World events have powerfully reinforced the importance of having a strong Canadian research capacity to meet the needs of Canadians.
This is an exciting time for health research and innovation in the National Capital Region, with transformative projects on the horizon not only for The Ottawa Hospital, but also for the University of Ottawa and other partners. Working together, we will solidify our position as a major hub for translating bioscience and health innovation into better health care.
On behalf of the OHRI Board of Directors and Senior Leadership Team, we thank all our dedicated trainees, researchers, clinicians and staff for their hard work and commitment to harnessing research to reshape the future of health care. We also thank the many patients, donors and partners who contribute to our research.
Paul Davidson
Chair, Board of Directors, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Dr. Rebecca Auer
CEO and Scientific Director, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Executive Vice-President, Research and Innovation, The Ottawa Hospital
Professor, University of Ottawa
The Ottawa Hospital Foundation
When we launched our Campaign to Create Tomorrow in spring 2022, we announced an ambitious $500M goal. In the years since then, we’ve seen an incredible response from the community, with gifts of all sizes and with many families and companies in the region making their largest philanthropic gifts to date. We’re thrilled to report that we are currently at $356M — 71% of the way to our goal!
This success is thanks to the generosity of our community and the hard work of literally hundreds of volunteers. This past year, we welcomed four new co-chairs to the campaign: Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, Department Head of Critical Care at our hospital, Jeff W. Clarke, CEO & Chairman of Inflector Environmental Services, Ginger Bertrand, President of GAB Group Inc. and co-founder of Neue Theory, and Kevin Ford, CEO of Calian Group. Roger Greenberg, who had been our Campaign Chair from day one, transitioned to his new role as Chair Emeritus. We’ve been humbled by the amount of support we’ve received and are excited about what this next year will bring for our campaign.
Every time we pass by the site of the new hospital on Carling Avenue and see the latest progress, it’s a great reminder that the future of healthcare is being shaped right before our eyes, and the community plays such an important role in that vision.
With such a monumental project underway and support from the community growing, it’s more important to us than ever to ensure we are reporting back on the impact of donations. For more information on this, please visit yourimpact.ca for our latest financial reports and impact reporting.
We are proud to be one of the most efficient hospital foundations in the country with our cost to raise a dollar being only $0.18. Additionally, for the 12th consecutive year we’ve been named a High Performer with the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.
To achieve our goal and help reshaping the future of healthcare, it will take all of us, and together, we will building a stronger, healthier community.
With gratitude,
Janet McKeage
Chair, Board of Directors, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation
Tim Kluke
President and CEO, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation