Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital accepts first patients

Hospital opens to help in the fight against COVID-19

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 7, 2021
Laura Broadley

The Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital is officially open to help in the fight against COVID-19.

The hospital, which accepted its first patients on Feb. 7, has an exclusive focus on creating additional ICU and acute care capacity to help address the surge in COVID-19 cases in Ontario. This will help alleviate capacity pressures faced by Ontario hospitals that are dealing with nearly full ICUs and increasing COVID-19 cases.

Patients were moved from the Richmond Hill site to the Vaughan site on Feb. 7.

The first day of opening will see 42 patients from Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital to Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, which includes 12 ICU patients and 30 internal medicine patients.

Starting on Feb. 9, the Vaughan hospital will start to receive patients from neighbouring hospitals that are having capacity challenges, said Mackenzie Health president and CEO Altaf Stationwala.

Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital was slated to open as a full-service hospital but because of the capacity pressures being felt by other Ontario hospitals, the opening instead focused on adding 35 ICU beds and 150 general internal medicine beds to the system.

The emergency department at the hospital is closed and other services, such as the woman and child, in-patient mental health and in-patient integrated stroke, will remain at Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital for now.

Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital was purposefully built with mostly single-patient rooms, which allows for enhanced infection prevention and control protocols.

Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital is Canada’s first smart hospital. Stationwala said one of the most obvious impacts of the smart hospital is that patient medical records are electronic, making transfers between hospitals more efficient.

“All that information is at the fingertips of the provider,” he said. “All the information is seamless between all of our sites.”

Stationwala said the smart hospital is giving key pieces of information to the providers so they can deliver care more efficiently and quickly.

Bedside tablets are just one example of how the patients are now in more control of their health care, Stationwala said.

The Ontario government invested $1.3 billion toward the $1.7-billion hospital project. The local share, which is required to help cover the costs of technology and medical equipment, as well as a portion of construction costs, is supported by the community through the Ultimate campaign. To date, the campaign has raised more than $180 million of the $250 million goal.