Niagara Health System 

“Angus Connect’s approach to developing the ICAT Design Program for the new South Niagara Hospital was both forward-looking and grounded in reality, giving us a solid foundation as we move into Stage 3 of our redevelopment project. We really appreciated their fresh perspective on emerging technology, and in-depth knowledge of the opportunities and risks inherent in these types of projects.”

Niagara Health (NH) operates five hospitals and community care facilities in the Niagara Region, serving a diverse population of nearly half a million people and the second highest percentage of seniors aged 65+ in Ontario. The new South Niagara Hospital is expected to consolidate three of the existing sites into a state-of-the-art facility located south of Niagara Falls.

Angus Connect was engaged to help NH achieve their ICAT vision by translating the future state vision into a forward-looking and feasible ICAT design program which could be easily translated into Project Specific Output Specifications (PSOS) as part of Stage 3. Niagara Health was able to capitalize on a unique opportunity, having recently constructed the new St. Catharines Site hospital (2013) which incorporated many current ICAT solutions at the time – the lessons learned from this redevelopment project were addressed as part of the ICAT design program, along with governance and change management recommendations.

In order to complete this work, we participated in the development of the ICAT vision and principles, then developed evaluation criteria and prioritization of ICAT solutions. Our team took a novel approach to stakeholder engagement, categorizing technology options as bronze, silver or gold in order to indicate various levels of implementation and to stimulate productive discussion regarding the functional requirements and use cases for clinical, business and building systems. The output from these sessions was summarized into solution profiles which detailed system requirements, key outcomes & performance indicators, governance, change management strategies, potential risks and challenges (along with mitigation measures), and proposed scope to support Stage 3 documentation.

Finally the ICAT solutions were mapped onto an eight-year implementation plan which addressed both pre-construction and post-construction activities, in addition to those in scope for the redevelopment project. Our team also generated a comprehensive budget cost estimate which included evaluation of potential funding sources based on our previous experience working on Infrastructure Ontario and MoHLTC-funded projects.