Strategic Direction 2: Integrated and Sustainable Models of Care
Shaping the health system to support patients from hospital across the care continuum.
Health care is a team sport! Sunnybrook will deliver seamless care ‘journeys’ in the hospital, with primary care, with the community, and across the care continuum. To support Sunnybrook’s dual mandate, we will enable and help shape vertical and horizontal integration opportunities that improve the quality, experience and cost of care in North Toronto and across the Province in specialized care areas.
Objective 1
Integrate our specialized and complex care programs with partners across the care continuum in Ontario.
Objective 2
Collaborate with our partners to evolve the North Toronto Ontario Health Team to strengthen care delivery in our community.
Patient & staff stories
Diabetes in Pregnancy Clinic
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, people requiring specialized and complex care during pregnancy were able to safely access timely care virtually. One such example is the Diabetes in Pregnancy Clinic within Sunnybrook’s DAN Women’s and Babies Program.
"As an expectant mother deemed high risk, there are a lot of appointments to ensure that my baby and I are safe. Having the option to receive my prenatal care virtually was convenient and made my life a lot easier to manage."
– Patient of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Clinic
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, women requiring specialized and complex care during pregnancy were able to safely access timely care virtually. One such example is the Diabetes in Pregnancy Clinic within Sunnybrook’s DAN Women’s and Babies Program. This clinic became entirely virtual with a nurse and dietitian, remote monitoring of blood glucose values, weekly phone calls with the physician and other team members, and postpartum diabetes prevention classes to ensure continuity of care.
For many women with diabetes in pregnancy, specialized care is not available locally which means they may have to travel long distances to attend the numerous specialist appointments multiple days a week, while juggling a full work schedule and potentially supporting other children and commitments. The response to this change was overwhelmingly positive with more than 80% of women saying they would want their care for gestational diabetes to continue virtually even after the pandemic.
Dr. Stephanie Zhou's story
During the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, Dr. Stephanie Zhou has been spending her time helping to get vaccines in arms — at Sunnybrook and in the community
