Southlake gets fresh name for future growth – and to mark 100th anniversary

December 5, 2024 · 0 Comments

As our local hospital continues its 100^th anniversary celebration, it has adopted a new name and a new vision for the future.

To mark both the anniversary and its release of a new strategy for the decade ahead, Southlake Regional Health Centre will now be known as Southlake Health.

According to the hospital, the streamlined name “better reflects a renewed focus on integrated, patient-centred care, signalling a commitment to delivering care across the continuum – whether in hospital settings, outpatient facilities, through community-based programs, virtually or at home.”

“Today, we begin to build on Southlake’s incredible 100-year foundation in a bold way,” said Marilee Harris, Board Chair for Southlake Health, in a November 27 statement. “Our commitment to expanding care closer to home by taking a distributed approach, along with our partners, is a response to our communities’ needs and a reflection of our mission to always put people first.”

The decade ahead will be transformative for Southlake Health as it aims to grow in tandem with the communities it serves in northern York Region, south Simcoe County, and a much wider catchment area for specialties like cancer and cardiac care.

They’re on the hunt for a new campus to supplement their long-time base on Davis Drive in Newmarket and have been undertaking extensive consultations within the community to identify future needs.

“The municipalities that Southlake serves are among the fastest-growing in the province, and without any material acute care expansion in over 20 years, Southlake has become an epicentre of hallway healthcare in Ontario,” said the hospital. “When faced with these challenges, Southlake’s communities were clear – increase access to high-quality care closer to home.

“Anchored by its Davis Drive site and existing community-based locations, Southlake will work with partners to establish additional footholds across the municipalities it serves to tackle hallway healthcare by developing a Distributed Health Network. Key to this will be the creation of a second hospital site and the redevelopment of the Davis Drive campus. Southlake will also expand beyond its walls altogether, with a focus on virtual care and by leveraging learnings from its successful Southlake@home program.”

Heading in the direction of a Distributed Health Network will help Southlake improve outcomes and experiences for patients, families and caregivers.

They say it is a “new way to organize and deliver care” across a broad geographic catchment area, spreading services throughout its municipalities.

Once a new site is chosen, acute hospital-based care will be delivered from the redeveloped Davis Drive site and at its new hospital, wherever it ends up being built.

Services that don’t require a hospital visit will be delivered at “Advanced Care Campuses”, which they say will help reduce hallway healthcare.

“Southlake has successfully provided services from both the hospital and various community-based locations across northern York Region and southern Simcoe County for quite some time,” said Paul Woods, MD, President and CEO, Southlake Health. “With our new strategy, we are doubling down on this approach by embracing an exciting new vision for the future of healthcare.

“The modern hospital is much more than a building – it is a constellation of expertise that must adapt to patients’ changing needs and the evolving healthcare landscape. By shifting away from traditional thinking that sees hospitals as simple bricks and mortar facilities, we can better appreciate their true value — harnessing the collective expertise, compassion, and experience of our people to deliver care in new and flexible ways.”

Added Jennifer Ritter, President & CEO of the Southlake Health Foundation: “With the support of our communities, Southlake has been able to provide leading edge care, close to home for 100 years, but this next chapter will require all of us to have transformational philanthropy in our sights – inspiring some of the most significant investments in our history. We have achieved incredible things together, and this new plan will put us on a path to achieve an extraordinary legacy of care for our communities.”

For more on the future of Southlake Health, visit www.southlake.ca/strategy.

By Brock Weir