Preparing for the future of brain health at Sunnybrook

As the finishing touches are put on the new Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre at Sunnybrook, scheduled to open in January 2025, planning for the first day of operations is well underway.

Recently, the team responsible for planning and executing the move to the new Hurvitz Centre held a mock patient transfer exercise. This exercise is designed to test processes and procedures, while making sure that when the day comes, teams are ready to help relocate patients. It also helps prepare for a safe and smooth transition with no interruption to the important care that our team in the Hurvitz Brain Sciences program provides to patients every single day.

The exercise started with a briefing before heading to F-Wing, where inpatients in the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program currently receive care. Once on F-Wing, teams meticulously rehearsed the process of transferring the patient from F-wing to the new Hurvitz Centre. Steps included collecting paperwork, verifying the patient’s identity, gathering belongs and medications, and walking the route that staff and patients will take to relocate operations to the building. The teams ran through two different scenarios, including simulating different emergency codes that could happen during the move and testing responses to those situations to keep patients and staff safe.

“Preparing to move patients to the new Hurvitz Centre is a team effort,” said Anne-Marie MacLeod, Operations Director responsible for the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program. “Exercises like this help us prepare our teams, identify potential problems and take steps to address them to help make sure patients receive seamless care. We are ready and excited about welcoming patients to the new centre early next year.”

A vital part of Sunnybrook’s vision to invent the future of health care, the new Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre is the first of its kind in Canada for patient care and interdisciplinary research, with a focus on treating mental and physical health as one. It unites Sunnybrook experts under one roof to increase collaboration and discovery, as well as enhance the patient experience with streamlined care for complex condition. The Hurvitz Centre will revolutionize approaches to the most complex brain disorders, including mood and anxiety disorders, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS and more.

In Canada, one in three people will experience a brain disorder in their lifetime; one in five will experience a mental illness or addiction concern. The new Hurvitz Centre will address those increasing needs with specialized services.

“It’s incredibly exciting to see our teams behind the scenes thoughtfully preparing with so much enthusiasm to welcome patients to the new Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre,” said Kelly Cole, President and CEO of Sunnybrook Foundation. “We are grateful to Garry Hurvitz for his generous support and his passion for improving brain health in Canada. When the doors open in a few weeks, it will be thanks to his leadership and the generosity of over 7,000 donors who were inspired by his vision.”

About the new Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre

The new Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre is 120,000 square feet and three storeys tall. The Hurvitz Centre has 47 private inpatient beds to accommodate more patients, including:

• 28 adult inpatient rooms
• nine psychiatric intensive unit rooms
• 10 youth inpatient rooms

In addition to inpatient space, the Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre features 26 outpatient exam rooms and is home to:

• the Harquail Centre for Neuromodulation, one of the world’s first to offer a complete range of neuromodulation strategies to influence brain circuitry;
• the Murphy Family Centre for Mental Health, providing compassionate and comprehensive inpatient care for youth and adults;
• the Yuval & Lori Barzakay Brain Health Clinic, where research directly impacts outpatient care in stroke, memory, ALS, traumatic brain injury and more; and
• Ontario’s first circadian sleep centre, with sleep rooms dedicated to round-the-clock testing.