At Sunnybrook, we are inventing the future of healthcare. The treatments of tomorrow
are happening right here, right now, today. In imaging techniques
the find diseases earlier. In treatments that are more precise.
In cutting-edge techniques we teach others here
and around the world. In breakthrough medical advances
that are saving lives. With your help, we will heal the
future. With your help, we are inventing the future of healthcare.
So what does the future of healthcare look like? In cancer,
as you know, the earlier the diagnosis the better that we can treat you
and the better you will be in the long term we've learned to manipulate
ultrasound
at a high frequency so that the energy from the sound can actually provide
treatment,
so from imaging to treatment with the same machine.
One of the amazing technologies we doing at Sunnybrook is learning how to use
imaging to see how our treatments are working. You can see
live, in somebody, how treatment is actually working.
The imaging is showing us how cells are responding
in real time. We're seeing if it works now.
We can tailor the amount we give you. We can tailor
how we give it and we know if it's working or not
while you're getting it. And I think that the most important thing for us
never to abandon good therapy. We just make it better,
faster, more effective, and most importantly,
more invisible to our patients every day.
What we've done at Sunnybrook that's somewhat unique in the world
is that we've integrated the entire Department of Psychiatry,
all of mental health, with related programs that deal with disorders of the
brain including neurology,
including geriatric medicine, even including neuorsurgery.
The demographic in Canada is like many developed countries:
tremendous shift in the population towards older age and
older adults and this is going to pose a tremendous challenge to the health care
system.
The Brain Sciences Program, in response to the societal need,
is focusing on vascular change in the brain that we call stroke
and we're also focused very much on dementia, like Alzheimer's disease.
And as part of both of those we integrate
the psychiatric manifestations of these conditions. These are complex diseases
and we need to take a multi-faceted approach
in order to address them properly. The future health care is now where we're
doing it now
but with the development of improved technology
we're just going to get better and better at what we do.
Sunnybrook created an incredibly innovative program that combine trauma
emergency medicine, and critical care. It's unique not only in North
America but in the world.
Most traumas that we see are preventable
and they're not just preventable by not drinking while you drive
or
staying away from ladders. They're also made safer by some very sophisticated
things like redesigning better cars,
designing better roads. That takes an incredible novel
research integration between some people that doctors aren't usually used to
collaborating with.
There aren't very many times when a trauma surgeon, an intensive care doctor
and a road engineer get to sit down and that's what we want to create.
It's all about speed. We talk about the golden hour.
That first hour determines almost everything. What we hope is that the trauma centre
without walls will save lives.
Patients won't move and things will happen faster. I can bring the imaging to
the patient,
I can bring the radiologist to the patient. If I have to, I can even
operate on the patient right there and the patient doesn't have to move.
It's all about time.
The important parts of cardiac care now are to look into the future
to try and develop new ways of delivering therapy,
minimally-invasively, without having to do very radical types of surgeries
when you can perform elegant procedures through very small incisions
that will enable them to recover quicker and more completely and to leave
hospital and get back to life
as soon as they can. The types of valves that we're putting in now for
the aortic
position instead of having todo open-heart surgery and procedures we're doing on
the mitral valve to try and prevent them from leaking,
able to plug huge aneurysms without having to open up
huge incisions in there in the belly and chest, and my own personal work which
called chronic total occlusions
by injecting a drug into the occlusions to soften them
in order to make them more amenable and facilitate angioplasty in these very
difficult to treat arteries.
We were very open to looking at many new types of procedures to try and
keep at the cutting edge which is where I think we should be and we
have to be.
Birth is a normal process. It's not a medical process.
It's not a disease. But sometimes things don't go as we planned
and if you're going to have a problem, you couldn't be in a better unit than
Sunnybrook
because we're in the situation of being able to
offer the most specialized care at the most critical times in these patients lives.
Combining research and follow-up care is very very important. We want to know what
the outcomes for these very small babies are.
Typically after a babies born prematurely
They're followed until two years of age. Unfortunately this does not allow for
identification of problems
that might influence how they adapt into the educational system.
We're following our kids up to six years. MRI is a state-of-the-art system for
imaging
brains and it's very important him premature infants
because we know their brains are very very vulnerable.
Right now adult MRI machines are the only thing that are available
in the city and in fact there are only two specially designed
neonatal MRI units in the world. What we're looking for at Sunnybrook is to
establish the first Canadian neonatal MRI centre.
My hope for Sunnybrook is that we continue to be leaders in the
development of
new healthcare strategies, research and
betterment of outcomes for the most vulnerable moms and babies.
We basically have a living classroom. We have a wide
range students who come here. Many different health professions and
backgrounds.
We have students here in medicine who are undergraduate, postgraduate,
fellows. We in fact have fellows coming from across the world
to learn from some of our expert staff here. Sunnybrook was the first hospital
in Canada
to have a simulation center we can actually now use
mannequins or components of mannequins to teach surgeons how to do special
surgical procedures - minimally invasive procedures -
and it's a great way for staff or surgeons,
for new students to learn in a very very controlled environment. We talk
about breaking down
barriers in education. Our care is provided
by teams. Doctors, nurses, other healthcare specialists.
We should actually teach that team together
and this is all about learning as a team because you're gonna provide care is a
team.
Research is the fundament of innovation.
Discovery is the fundament of innovation.
High-intensity focused ultrasound has also been used for what
we call
scalpel-less surgery. We have now treated,
in clinical trial, multiple patients
with inoperable brain tumors and
essential tremors with high intensity focused ultrasound
and eventually cured them without
breaking skin. It's quite remarkable. We have scientists
who have now uncovered
the developmental cues
that will move stem cells into
every cell in your immune system.
We're able to integrate the research
that we do within each of the clinical
programs that Sunnybrook sheppards. We need
engineers working next to physicists, working next to geneticists, working
next to cell biologists
and the clinicians within
infrastructure that was designed
to enable this interaction. And this is precisely what we have created.
We are dedicated to providing
that best healthcare available
in the world. By relentlessly pursuing the next life-saving medical invention,
we will heal the future. Every day,
we will change the outcome for patients. Every day,
we will transform lives.
Our patience are really dependent upon us order to provide the best care
now and also the best care in the future.
What we are doing is matching our research expertise with that
clinical focus and clinical expertise so that we can make the biggest difference
for our patients
now and in the future.
What does the future of healthcare look like? It looks like this.
Today's discoveries are the treatments of tomorrow.
We are changing the outcomes of our patients.
We are treating the untreatable.
We are seeing the invisible.
We will stop the unstoppable.
We will make the inoperable operable.
Life happens here at Sunnybrook.
We are inventing the future of healthcare.