Congratulations to the 2024 Marilyn Reddick Award for Team Work recipients!
The Marilyn Reddick Award for Team Work recognizes exceptional teams that demonstrate extraordinary teamwork and collaboration that have resulted in excellence in their work with valuable contributions to Sunnybrook’s Strategic Plan, the Mission and Values. Read more about this year's winning teams.
*Teams are listed in alphabetical order.
Breast Imaging Team
The Breast Imaging Team interacts with a patient population that is often encountering great uncertainty and grappling with fear and anxiety. It is the team’s mission to make those patients feel cared for and to put the patient needs first. Cancer patients often come back to give thanks for the great service and patient care. Many say that Sunnybrook’s Breast Imaging team saved their lives and shed tears of happiness for the team and its contribution.
The diversity of the team is a considerable asset as their patient population is also diverse. Often when patients come in and realize that one of the team members can speak their language, they express that they feel safe and grateful. The team works closely together and supports each other through challenging and happy times to deliver excellent care “when it matters most”. They aim to reach this goal each day.
Holland Centre Preadmission Clinic
The Holland Centre Preadmission Clinic (PAC) strives to optimize patients for orthopedic surgery through thorough assessment and patient-centered education. Consultations by the interdisciplinary team during the preoperative visit focus on determining a patient’s readiness for surgery, as well as identifying factors that could delay post-op discharge. The PAC team has created patient guidebooks that prepare patients for what their surgery journey will be like, teaches and encourages them to have heathy and active lifestyles, and connects them to a number of other education portals. The team has developed multiple digital tools to allow patients to monitor their own progress during their recovery at home while providing the PAC team with valuable information that is used in further improving their program and positive patient outcomes. The team works hard to provide their patients with a variety of communication tools in order to minimize barriers to the care provided.
Legal Services Team
Sunnybrook’s in-house Legal Services department only formed 13 years ago, yet its reach and impact is profoundly felt. The team works with everyone connected to the hospital, including Senior Leadership, Department and Program Chiefs, physicians, allied healthcare staff and researchers to reduce Sunnybrook’s risks while promoting its strategic plan to be both a nationally and internationally renowned hospital for patient-centric care and innovative research. The team manages between 2,500-3,000 new files each year, which cover a wide variety of areas including major leasing agreements, contracts for services, research agreements and technology licensing deals.
In addition to the support provided to Sunnybrook, the team is also a leader in several TAHSN and Ontario-wide initiatives. This includes the Sunnybrook-led Quality Improvement initiative to develop a master data sharing agreement to allow quality improvement teams at TAHSN hospitals to share data in support of QI projects without the need to enter into lengthy agreement negotiations each time. The team’s collaborative and supportive environment as well as its use of metrics contributes to its success and ability to provide support and offer timely legal advice.
Linen Services
The Linen Services team, though often working behind the scenes, offers an essential service throughout the hospital every day. This team ensures all patients receive the highest standard of care by providing clean, comfortable, and well-maintained linens. With a large volume of linens required daily, the team operates with remarkable efficiency, ensuring that linens are always available where and when they are needed without interruption. The work of this team offers all Sunnybrook patients a sense of comfort and dignity during their stay. The team also manages more than 8,000 ScrubEx users. By providing seamless delivery of clean scrubs, the team ensures users are always equipped to attend to their work around the clock.
The team’s diligence and commitment to excellence are instrumental to the quality-of-care Sunnybrook provides, and embodies the spirit of excellence we strive for in our hospital.
Office of Patient Experience (OPE)
The goal of this expert team is to understand and improve the experience of all our patients and families, which is a major focus of Strategic Direction 3 – “Quality and Creating a Better Care Experience.” Their work, collaborating daily with patients and their families, and all members of Team Sunnybrook, from frontline staff, to managers, to senior leaders, ensures that the high quality, complex medical care that we provide every day to our patients, is done in a way that represents our hospital’s values. The work the OPE team does day in and day out is instrumental to the success of what we do here at Sunnybrook: taking care of people, their families and our community.
By serving as a vital liaison between hospital staff and patients, the Patient Experience Ambassadors enhance the patient experience and ensure that individuals receive the guidance they need during challenging times. Their recent expansion to the MySunnybrook Experience Centre has further demonstrated their dedication to partnering with patients and visitors, aligning seamlessly with Sunnybrook’s mission of collaborative care. The Ambassadors assist patients, families and visitors in navigating Sunnybrook, reducing stress and confusion. Their support ensures a smoother, more informed hospital experience.
Spiritual Care Team
The Spiritual Care team at Sunnybrook is integral to our holistic approach to health care, providing deep emotional, spiritual, and even physical comfort to patients and their families as they experience anxiety, grief, loneliness, and fear during some of life’s most challenging moments. They navigate cultural and religious differences, connect families with appropriate resources, and – with trust and reliability – are consistently accessible to all who are in need.
Beyond routine duties, the team delivers profound emotional and spiritual support to other staff members and teams, particularly during critical times. They lead by example and foster compassion, love, and understanding for our patients, colleagues and ourselves when it matters most.
Veterans Centre Rehab
The Veterans Centre Rehab Team is comprised of 30 outstanding health care professionals who work tirelessly to support 14 units across the Veterans Program. The team is made up of specialists from numerous fields, including physical and occupational therapy, dietetics, audiology, and speech-language pathology. The team’s dedication to health care excellence is showcased by its commitment to continual learning and professional development. Over the last year, the team has implemented a variety of services for residents, including hearing screening, nutritional programming, and transitional care plans.
The team goes above and beyond for our Veterans Program, remaining available over long weekends to ensure late admission patients have the services and care they need upon arrival. Through it all, this team tirelessly demonstrates Sunnybrook values in excellence, collaboration, accountability, respect and engagement.
