As Niagara Health strives to create a healthier Niagara, we are creating specialized programs that will supply exceptionally high concentrations of expertise and resources centered on specific medical areas and delivered in a comprehensive, interdisciplinary fashion - called Centres of Excellence.
Each Centre of Excellence will have one dedicated site designated to develop and lead clinical practice and standardization for specific programs. Centres of Excellence will build on our existing strengths and bring together the unparalleled talent and expertise of our people to build new collaborations across disciplines, programs, and in some cases with peers outside of Niagara Health. The design of a Centre of Excellence affords many advantages for both healthcare providers and the community we serve, with the ultimate goal of providing better outcomes for our patients.
Niagara Health has identified these programs as Centre of Excellence at the South Niagara Site due to the growth of the program, the utilization, and level of expertise needed:
Regional Stroke Centre
Wellness in Aging
Complex Care
Niagara Health’s Centre of Excellence model drives quality across the organization through consistent standards of care, approaches to care and performance management across our sites, informed by leading practices.
An outreach-based service model will be developed for Niagara Health sites whereby Centre of Excellence program teams will provide services across the system rather than duplicating services at each site.
To become a Centre of Excellence, each program must:
Be committed to providing the highest quality of care to every patient, every time.
Conduct research that translates into improved treatment options and patient outcomes.
Enact a culture of continuous improvement.
These specialized programs will offer concentrated expertise and resources to develop best practices, and the most effective treatments available. As a Center of Excellence patient, you can expect:
Access to Specialists
Treatment from a Centre of Excellence means you will have access to doctors, nurses and other professionals across many specialties — working together to bring you the highest quality, most comprehensive and specialized care possible. Each member of your Center of Excellence care team will be specially trained on your specific condition.
An Extraordinary Patient Experience
From the start of your healthcare journey through treatment and into recovery, each of Centre of Excellence will ensure the highest quality of patient care — whether that means helping you and your family or caregiver, better understand your condition, and/or managing your symptoms and medications.
Coordinated Care
The coordination of care that happens at a Centre of Excellence will allow your medical team to easily exchange information, learn from one another, and treat you more holistically.
Centre of Excellence with Specialized Services
The Complex Care Centre of Excellence will provide care to patients with chronic ventilation needs. This will include inpatient services for Complex Care, providing continuing inpatient care for patients with complex medical needs.
The program will also extend services to the Welland Site. Complex Care beds will provide access to acute diagnostic and medical services/supports, as will end of life care for patients from whom local access is vital. Niagara Health will work closely with the Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre, to continue to provide Complex Care for the residents of Niagara, with a focus on restorative care. Both organizations will provide end of life care.
Behavioural health care will also be provided for patients with challenging behaviours who require skilled interventions in a controlled environment (i.e., acquired brain injuries resulting from organic factors such as stroke, dementia, delirium, etc.). These patients are higher intensity and require a higher level of care.
The Regional Stroke Centre of Excellence will improve equitable stroke care access across Niagara Region. Stroke care is anticipated to be one of the fastest growing clinical programs over the next ten years. Niagara Health is already a leader in stroke care and among the best in the province for patient outcomes. New programs include neurology clinics and diagnostics, rapid assessment service, stroke prevention education and rehabilitation therapies for both inpatients and outpatients.
The neurology and stroke ambulatory service will include multi‐disciplinary care on an outpatient basis and will include:
Clinics
Rapid assessment, neurology
Neurology
Stroke
Stroke prevention and follow‐up educational services on a group and individual basis to patients who are “at risk” and/or have experienced a stroke.
Neurodiagnostic Services
Electroencephalography (EEG)
Electromyography (EMG)
Occupational Therapy (OT) services will focus on stroke patients and will include:
Cognitive and perceptual remediation/retraining strategies
Upper extremity motor skills retraining
Activities of daily living (ADL) functional retaining
The Wellness and Aging Centre of Excellence will add a formal rapid assessment service to provide consistent and timely response to patients presenting in emergency. Outpatient services for seniors will be enhanced to include comprehensive assessment, treatment and follow up care, coordinated with community health and support service providers.
Extraordinary Caring. Every Person. Every Time.
