Healthcare is at the heart of city-building in Vaughan

Thesmartcityjournal.com
September 2, 2020
Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua

The Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua presents The Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, first Smart Hospital in Canada

Long before the world had ever heard of COVID-19, the City of Vaughan began preparing for a future with healthcare at the heart of city-building.

Providing accessible, front-line care for all citizens is in perfect alignment with our number one priority, which is to ensure our community's health and well-being. We continue to work in support of this mission every day. We are taking an innovative approach to 21st-century healthcare to meet our city's current needs and forecast future growth.

The Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital will mark a series of firsts: Vaughan's first hospital, the first new hospital built in York Region in more than 30 years and Canada's first smart hospital. Its care delivery model embraces a connected health strategy that utilizes digital communications to provide quality healthcare both inside and outside the traditional hospital setting.

The new $1.6 billion, 1.2-million square foot, state-of-the-art facility will feature fully integrated smart technology systems and medical devices that speak directly to one another to create improved patient care and information exchange. It can house up to 550 hospital beds and will generate more than 1,800 full-time employment positions.

The City of Vaughan has a long-held funding strategy to help fund, build and complete construction. My commitment to seeing it through explains why I chair the Mackenzie Health Foundation's $250-million Ultimate Campaign. I am proud to announce that $178 million has been raised toward reaching our goal.

In the next few weeks, we will mark an important milestone when the construction of Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital is substantially complete. As we anticipate the transition from constructing the building to now, turning it into a fully functional hospital, teams are already preparing for the work ahead to get ready to safely welcome patients when the hospital opens in early 2021.

Hospitals are magnets for innovation, education and investment that can lead to the transformation of a community. These opportunities must be seized to maximize positive outcomes. This is certainly true for the lands surrounding the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, called the Vaughan Healthcare Centre Precinct, which is a first-of-its-kind initiative in Canada.

In October 2019, I signed a memorandum of understanding with York University, Mackenzie Health and ventureLAB to identify transformational opportunities for the best use of the lands surrounding the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital through a feasibility study. At its core, this partnership is about city-building and leveraging each of our resources to enable innovation, technology and economic opportunities -- from startups to multi-national enterprises in health-related sectors -- to create a truly unique community healthcare experience.

The first of the three-phase feasibility study is now complete. We are examining various options, including a new space for ventureLAB to expand and create another regional innovation hub in Vaughan as well as opportunities for collaboration between Mackenzie Health and York University in the field of health sciences. The study is on track to be completed by the end of 2020.

This site will connect people, spaces and bring together different sectors to become an epicentre of healthcare excellence across Canada.

The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic is felt in communities around the world and here in Vaughan our efforts remain focused on our plan for the future. The Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital will provide world-class healthcare to individuals and families in Vaughan and beyond. I look forward to 2021 when the doors of this hospital will open to create a new era of healthcare in our city.