The COEfficient The COEfficient - Capital Health

COLLABORATING IN CARE
New ‘living laboratory’ puts women and children first
Wendy Beaudoin with three-year-old
daughter Olivia and Dr. Thierry Lacaze,
neonatologist and Acting Director of the
Women and Children’s Health Research
Institute.
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA AND
Capital Health have announced
a joint commitment to create the
region’s first-ever research institute
dedicated to women and children’s
health. Thanks to commitments of
$37 million from our communities
through the Stollery Children’s Hospital
($30 million) and Royal Alexandra
Hospital ($7 million) Foundations,
the new institute will be a potent
force in the national research agenda
in two critical fields.
Clinicians will work with scientists
across six University of Alberta faculties
in the Women and Children’s Health
Research Institute to study and treat
the full range of women and children’s
health issues, from diagnosing and
treating illness in utero and developing
new treatments for autism, epilepsy
and other child health problems,
to new services for mature women.
The institute will consist of three
linked research centres:
1. A children’s clinical research
centre, to be located in the future
Edmonton Clinic across 114 Street
from the Walter C. Mackenzie Centre
2. A women’s clinical research centre,
to be part of the future Lois Hole
Hospital for Women within the
Robbins Pavilion, being built on
the Royal Alexandra Hospital site
3. A basic research centre, to be
located within the future Discovery
Centre being built on 87 Avenue
just north of the University of
Alberta Hospital site
10 CHQ ~ SUMMER 2006 www.capitalhealth.ca
“These three centres will be the ‘life’
in the ‘living laboratory’ that we’re
envisioning for these new facilities,”
says Dr. Terry Klassen, Capital Health’s
Regional Clinical Program Director for
Child Health and University of Alberta
Chair of Pediatrics. “This is the leading
edge of health sciences, where we
study, develop, apply and evaluate
new treatments as we care for patients
in real time. It’s an exciting model and
nowhere else in Canada is it possible
on the scale we’re building here.”
“This is a great day for patients and
all the different health professionals
who care for them,” adds Dr. Wylam
Faught, Site Chief for Women’s Health
at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and
Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology
for the University, at the May 24 news
conference. “Women will have access
to state-of-the-art care, and the work
done here will benefit people right
across Canada. The institute will
not only build on many established
strengths in the region but also help
create new areas of expertise, like a
mature women’s clinic at the Royal
Alexandra.”
Planning for the institute is being
led by Dr. Thierry Lacaze, inaugural
Acting Director. Dr. Lacaze is a neonatologist
at the Stollery Children’s
Hospital and Research Director in
the University of Alberta Department
of Pediatrics. He was recruited to
Edmonton in 2003 from the University
of Paris.
The institute will include four new
endowed research Chairs – starting
with Dr. Lonnie Zwaigenbaum,
who is joining the Stollery team this
summer from McMaster University.
Dr. Zwaigenbaum is known internationally
as the author of a 2005
study that pinpointed signs of incipient
autism in infants as young as 12 months,
paving the way for earlier and more
effective intervention.
The institute will be devoted to
making life better for patients like
three-year-old Olivia Beaudoin, who
dropped in to the news conference
along with mom Wendy, a nurse
at the Stollery. Wendy told reporters
she’s grateful for Olivia’s care – which
started with a premature birth and
eventually included five neurosurgeries.
“Nobody should have to live their
first year in the hospital, and so I think
this is a huge step as far as research
money to develop different techniques
and different equipment. As a community,
we need to strive for no surgeries
for children, and this is a huge step in
that direction.”
Capital Health President and CEO,
Sheila Weatherill, says Alberta is in
the midst of a “baby boom” as young
families move here for jobs, so the
institute couldn’t be coming at a
better time. “Our region’s population
has grown eight per cent in the last
five years; but births in our hospitals
are up by 15 per cent, partly due to
steadily growing numbers of moms
and babies referred from northern
Alberta, the Northwest Territories
and elsewhere.” In total, she says, the
region expects about 15,000 babies
to be born here this year.
PAT MARSTON/CAPITAL HEALTH