Thanks to Peter Cipriano,
Sunnybrook will reinvent
care for seniors

New Vision of Care for Older People

With Peter Cipriano’s gift, Sunnybrook will pioneer a new model of personalized care to improve the lives of seniors, while reducing demands on the health-care system. Organized around the needs of older patients and their families, the Peter Cipriano Centre for Seniors Health will allow for the collaboration and expansion of the existing geriatric medicine programs in a 13,000-square-foot custom designed space.

The idea is to "bring care to patients, rather than patients to care.” Medical experts from across Sunnybrook will come to the Centre to see patients during a single and convenient session. The team will create personalized plans for each patient, working seamlessly with primary care providers and community supports.

The goal is to give seniors, and their families, the resources needed to stay healthy and independent for as long as possible, and out of hospital.

Full suite of outpatient services

The Peter Cipriano Centre for Seniors Health will offer a full suite of outpatient services including comprehensive assessment, rehabilitation, system navigation and caregiver support.

The Day Hospital will offer comprehensive patient assessments to create individualized treatment programs, all to enhance independence and quality of life for seniors who need longer rehabilitation. The outpatient acute geriatric unit will support seniors during their transition from hospital to home to prevent a decline in health. Additional services in the Centre will include eye care, psychology and audiology.

An on-site rapid referral clinic will allow seniors with more pressing health issues to be seen and treated within 24 to 48 hours, diverting approximately 2,000 patient visits a year from the Emergency Department.

The Centre will also serve as home base for the mobile outreach team, which visits seniors at home to conduct needs assessments.

Focused ultrasound provides revolutionary new approach for treatment

Sunnybrook is leading the world in the use of focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s. Sunnybrook will soon conduct the world’s first clinical trial to use focused ultrasound to treat Alzheimer’s patients with the aim of understanding if the harmful plaque associated with Alzheimer’s can be somewhat cleared by simply opening the blood-brain barrier barrier.

The blood-brain barrier protects the brain from harmful toxins and researchers hypothesis that temporarily opening the barrier will allow the body’s own natural defenses to help clear amyloid plaque. Researchers at Sunnybrook Research Institute are also investigating a variety of promising therapeutics that could combine with opening the blood-brain barrier including antibodies and gene therapy that can help the brain to restore brain cell functioning and stem cells that improve brain function.

Senior-friendly in approach and design

The goal of the Peter Cipriano Centre for Seniors Care is to maximize care for patients while respecting their time and conserving their energy. Patient convenience is paramount. For example, patient histories will be taken only once, creating efficiencies and reducing the stress on families. Booking and registration will be available through multiple channels, including online, email, by phone or in person, including self-registration kiosks.

Senior-friendly design features will include oversized exam rooms for patients with walkers or wheelchairs. Abundant natural light will animate the space, wayfinding will accommodate those with disabilities, and a heated and covered driveway will make drop-off and pick-up in inclement weather easier for all. In every aspect, the design will be tailored to reflect the needs of seniors.

The Next Generation of Experts

The Centre will serve as a crucial research and education hub. Fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, Sunnybrook has the largest seniors medicine subspecialty training program for post-graduate medical residents in the country. Each year, over 35 post-grad residents rotate through our training program to learn skills fundamental to the care of older adults. Another 50 undergraduate medical students come to Sunnybrook each year to learn the special functional, cognitive and emotional needs of elderly adults.

The Peter Cipriano Centre for Seniors Care will create a modern, state-of-the-art, mixed clinical and teaching facility to significantly advance excellence in medical education. Clinicians will advance models of care for seniors while students train at all levels to look after the unique needs of this growing population.

The new Centre will ensure that seniors will benefit from the care of physicians who are trained to address their specific medical and social challenges.

Motivated to help

Peter Cipriano, the founder of Goldpark Group, is an ardent supporter of geriatric medicine at Sunnybrook. Peter was introduced to the hospital by way of the health-care challenges faced by his elderly parents. Through this experience, he came to appreciate the comprehensive and holistic approach Sunnybrook geriatricians brought to patient care.

“I found it incredibly stressful dealing with the complexity of my parents’ health issues,” Peter says. “It helped ease my worries to know they had a specialized team. Now, the new Centre for Seniors Health will put seniors care at the very leading edge of medicine.”

Peter has made numerous gifts to support seniors care at Sunnybrook, including a $10 million gift to create the Peter Cipriano Centre for Seniors Health, with a commitment to ongoing support as the program evolves.

The Centre will transform seniors care with a novel patient-centred model, where care is coordinated around the patient in a comfortable, senior-friendly environment. The Centre will give seniors, and their families, the resources needed to stay out of the hospital and remain independent as long as possible, while fostering research and education to advance care for this growing population.

Read the press release.