Newmarket’s hospital is getting a new name as Southlake becomes Southlake Health.
The hospital, also known formally as the Southlake Regional Health Centre, said Nov. 27 it would be changing its name as it embarks on a new, 10-year strategy.
As the hospital celebrates its centennial, Southlake Health said the new name would better reflect “a renewed focus on integrated, patient-centred care” and signal a commitment to deliver care across the hospital and other settings.
“Today, we begin to build on Southlake’s incredible 100-year foundation in a bold new way,” Southlake Health board chair Marilee Harris said in a news release. “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.”
Southlake Health has been undergoing a consultation process for a new strategic plan to guide the next 10 years. The hospital said more than 1,200 engagements through that process reinforced the need for care close to home.
The hospital recognized the challenges it faces, with the surrounding area growing fast and the hospital not getting any material acute care expansion in more than 20 years.
“Southlake has become an epicentre of hallway health care in Ontario. When faced with these challenges, Southlake’s communities were clear — increase access to high-quality care, closer to home,” the hospital said.
The hospital said it will work with partners to establish “additional footholds” across municipalities to tackle hallway health care by developing a distributed health network. Key to this will be the creation of a second hospital site to join the current Davis Drive site, with Southlake putting out a call for help finding land for this.
The distributed health network is a new way for Southlake to organize its services. The concept is to have services that do not need to be provided in a hospital building to be put into “advanced care campuses,” multi-functional spaces that will be developed to support care. These spaces will be developed across Southlake’s wide catchment area, joining the current hospital, other existing health-care spaces and a future new hospital building.
“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,” Southlake president and CEO Paul Woods said. “With our new strategy, we are doubling down on this approach by embracing an exciting new vision for the future of health care.”
The name change will also apply to the Southlake Foundation, which will now become the Southlake Health Foundation.
Southlake Health Foundation president and CEO Jennifer Ritter said the next chapter of the hospital’s history will require “transformational philanthropy” and significant investments.
“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,” Ritter said.
You can read more about the Southlake strategy at southlake.ca/strategy.
