Children's Hospital of Saskatchewan
History
Although funding for the Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan was announced in the March 18, 2009 provincial budget, work on this project has been underway for quite some time.
The need for a maternal and children’s hospital in Saskatchewan dates back many years to when administrators, government, university, health care professionals and the Children's Hospital Foundation began formal discussions around the need for such a hospital and the best location.
All of these discussions led to one overall goal—to establish a provincial maternal and children's hospital. While many of these discussions occurred prior to the formation of Saskatoon Health Region in 2002, Saskatoon Health Region now has the responsibilities of planning, developing and operating the new facility.
To find out more about our journey to build a maternal and children's hospital for Saskatchewan, select a topic to view or scroll down to view them all:
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May 2006 to 2009 – The Early Years
From May 2006 to October 2007, planning was underway for maternal and children’s services in Saskatchewan. This work resulted in the creation of a functional program outlining which services should be located within a new facility.
In April 2007, the provincial government announced at Royal University Hospital that the planning of a new children’s hospital had progressed to the point where the preferred location and general parameters could be revealed.
The province unveiled that the location for a new maternal and children's hospital was to be Royal University Hospital. (News Release – Saskatchewan Health, April 20, 2007)
Reasons for the location included less disruption of current services, physicians, nurses and other staff, the ability to group related services more efficiently, and that the scope of planning had expanded to include maternal care since it was closely tied to pediatrics.
That announcement indicated that the 2007-08 budget provided up to one million dollars for further development plans. The project was at step eight (development of a complete functional program process) of the 18 step capital project development process. At step eight, the program, project scope, preliminary budget and high level conceptual plan are developed. In March 2008, the provincial government continued its support for the planning of a maternal and children's hospital. (News Release - Ministry of Health, March 19, 2008)
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2009 – A New Beginning
In March 2009, the provincial government announced $200 million in funding for Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan. This gave Saskatoon Health Region the funding commitment it needed to proceed with planning. (News Release - Ministry of Health, March 18, 2009)
With the location determined to be Saskatoon and even though will serve as a provincial children’s hospital, Saskatoon Health Region will be responsible for the construction and operation of the facility.
A governance framework and project steering committee (which meets monthly) were created to oversee the planning and development of the new hospital. The project team was created with the assignment of an internal project director and project lead.
In the fall of 2009, requests for proposals were developed and issued for project manager and prime architect.
In parallel to the work underway with the project itself, Children’s Hospital Foundation of Saskatchewan (CHFS) continued its fundraising efforts to assist in making this project a reality. Its $25 million capital campaign will support the advancement of research, innovation and family-centred care in the new hospital. CHFS has been a key driver in moving this project forward and making it a priority with past and present provincial governments.
As part of the fundraising work, in October 2009, CHFS received the largest individual gift made to a pediatric hospital in Western Canada. Leslie and Irene Dubé contributed $6.5 million, the couple saying “By the grace of God, we are able to pour out our love on all our children. When we wake up in the morning we have two choices; go back to sleep and dream or get up and chase those dreams.” (News Release - Children's Hospital Foundation of Saskatchewan, October 7, 2009)
In December 2009 and through January 2010, proposals were reviewed for project manager and prime architect. Finalists were chosen and negotiations began to secure services and contracts were drawn up.
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2010 - A Year of Milestones
In February 2010, Saskatoon Health Region announced the hiring of the Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan (CHS) project manager. ZW Group, based out of Ottawa, will oversee the design and construction of the province’s new children’s hospital.
At the same time, it was announced that Saskatoon Health Region would take three months to validate the site as part of the planning process. This was in response to significant discussion in the community on whether or not building a new $200 million dollar facility co-located with Royal University Hospital (RUH) made the most sense.
In April 2010, members of the Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan (CHS) Site Validation Panel began meeting to begin validating the site for the new hospital. Members of the panel include the public, representatives from industry, the Health Region, Saskatoon Regional Health Authority, University of Saskatchewan and Ministry of Health.
Also, throughout late winter and spring 2010, through a rigorous proposal process, a number of consultants were hired including Henry, Downing, Howlett Architects in association with ZGF Architects LLP, and BTY Group as the project’s cost management consultant.
In June 2010, the site validation panel brought forwards its recommendation that Royal University Hospital (RUH) and was approved by the Saskatoon Regional Health Authority as the preferred location. There was unanimous support for the recommendation from the CHS site validation panel.
The panel reviewed four options, scoring each of them independently against a pre-established set of criteria, some of which included quality, patient safety, and capital and operating costs. External experts were brought in to assist in the panel’s deliberations. Members of the public were also invited to share their thoughts on what they thought was most important in determining the site of the new hospital through the panel’s website. A total of 115 submissions were received and the site received more than 8,500 unique views.
Out of the four options the panel reviewed, the Royal University Hospital option ranked highest on 8 of 10 criteria. It was also deemed to be the safest location and the one that could provide the best patient experience that will have the least amount of disruption to patients and staff. The RUH option was also the least expensive. In essence, the RUH option will provide all of what need for a new children’s hospital safer, cheaper and faster.
At the same time, one of the recommendations from the site validation process was that parking be addressed as a priority for the new hospital, regardless of its location. One of the first orders of business after the validation process was to undertake an RUH parking study and develop a business case from that study. Further information, including copies of all of the validation panel's material, can be found on the CHS Site Validation website.
In July 2010, the University of Saskatchewan Board of Governors gave preliminary approval to Royal University Hospital as the location of the Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan. This decision set the stage for Saskatoon Health Region to begin the design phase of the project. (News Release - University of Saskatchewan, July 30, 2010)
Saskatoon Health Region proceeded to finalize the new hospital’s functional program. The original functional program created in 2007 underwent final examination with the hiring of the prime architect and project managers. The bed numbers were re-examined with updated population projections to ensure the most up-to-date information was being approved.
In September 2010, the provincial government re-affirmed its commitment to funding the project through a $200 million cheque presentation.(News Release - Office of the Premier, September 16, 2010)
While the cheque presentation was an important milestone in the project’s development, significantly more progress has been made on the project including creation of the project charter and project delivery plan.
In September 2010, the project team also started the design phase of the project. The team began working with staff and physicians to create the initial designs.
This involved sessions with 15 groups and more than 200 people. Each session results in the architects getting valuable feedback, evolving and improving early work and returning back to the groups for further review.
Also, in parallel to these early design sessions, the team along with staff and physicians began looking at how care is delivered today and how it could be delivered in the new facility. They started walking through the patient’s experience from the moment they enter the hospital to the moment they leave. They began challenging themselves by asking, “How can we make that experience better?”
While all this work was going on, in November 2010, another important milestone was reached.
Saskatoon Regional Health Authority at its monthly meeting unanimously passed a motion approving the functional program and the amendment for the new Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan. The amendment came out of the review work done throughout late summer and fall.
The functional program describes the services to be provided in the Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan and the service’s associated space.
The following key services are included in the functional program of the new hospital including maternal services such as antepartum inpatient, labour assessment, fetal assessment, intrapartum inpatient (labour and delivery), post partum inpatient and maternal outpatient; pediatric services such as a neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric intensive care unit, pediatric inpatient, pediatric surgical suite and pediatric outpatient; adult and pediatric emergency services.
The functional program also recommended that the vast majority of rooms will be private; there will be additional family space within the rooms and critical care areas; decentralized nursing stations; spiritual care space; and a family resource center.
By revisiting the 2007 program, project planners made amendments to it that will better meet the health care needs of a growing population of 2015 and beyond with the addition of 15 more beds. The inclusion of these services and special rooms results in a total of 164 beds for the new hospital within a building that will encompass 27,033m2.
Design work began in the fall of 2010 and continues, along with work to improve delivery of care. Watch for significantly more progress on creating Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan in the coming year!
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