CCHF is thrilled to host an upcoming conference at the renowned Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, part of SickKids—a world-leading facility in pediatric research, care, and education. Located in the heart of Toronto, SickKids stands at the forefront of advancing care for children and youth.

CONFERENCE DAY 1

The first day of the conference focuses on children and progress in designing health spaces that are genuinely reflective of children’s and youth’s needs, including safe, supportive environments for families and caregivers, and an inspiration for clinical teams and researchers.

CONFERENCE DAY 2

The second day features discussions on how to navigate capital costs and the policy direction of austerity, where solutions are being sought to find greater efficiencies in addressing the ever-inflating costs of healthcare buildings, while ensuring that health facilities continue to be designed to enhance the patient experience and reflect evidence-based design and community values.

LEADERSHIP  (LEADS) TRAINING & MINISTRY OF HEALTH SOUNDINGS STANDARDIZATION SYMPOSIUM

PRE CONFERENCE EVENTS
We are also thrilled to be offering two very special events the day before the conference on November 26th:

November 26th AM

(3 hours 9 am-12 pm)
The Canadian College of Health Leaders (CCHL) offers customized leadership training for health leadership for Capital Health leaders. 

Soundings Symposium
(2.5 hours 1-3:30 pm)

Learn about the intentions for Ontario’s Ministry of Health Standardized program for health capital
Industry viewpoints shared on standardization in health capital
Discover how standard design is being implemented across healthcare systems in the UK (NHS) and it partners followed by a health facility viewpoints panel discussion

NOVEMBER 26, 2025 

*Symposium Tickets are sold separately.

*limited capacity

*Tours are included in Conference registration.

Facility Tours:

4:00 – 5:30 PM, November 26: Stella’s Place Tour
Following the November 26th Symposium

Join us for a tour of Stella’s Place – an award-winning outpatient mental health facility designed specifically for young adults. The tour will include a presentation and walk-through of the innovative spaces.

Please note: Attendance is limited to 60 people.

Learn more about Stella’s Place and its awards

5:00 – 6:00 PM, November 27: Sim labs at The Hospital for Sick Children

3:00 PM, November 28 (TBC): The Hospital for Sick Children’s, Peter Gilgan Centre One of the largest children’s health research centres in the world. Featuring office and work space optimization design, interiors colocation for bedside /  benchside care.

CCHF

Connect – Share – Innovate

Conference Location:
Peter Gilgan Patient Care Tower – SickKids | The Hospital for Sick Children
686 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario

*Public parking is available off of Elizabeth Street

Draft Agenda: CCHF is confirming slots / speakers. Thank you for your patience…stay tuned. 

Day 1 – November 27, 2025

8:00 AM | Networking Breakfast

Network with your peers, enjoy a hot breakfast and walk around the table tops in the foyer

8:50 AM | Welcome from the Chair

9:00 AM | Vision of  Childhood and Youth Care from the President & CEO of SickKids Hospital, Ronald Cohn

9:30 AM | Project Horizon’s Evolution 

The Hospital for Sick Children is transforming infrastructure to support the next generation of pediatric care. Learn about the construction phasing and renovations planned, construction methods and innovations in integrating digital health and personalized medicine technologies for world class care.

Gloria Kain, Vice President Planning, Development and Transformation, The Hospital for Sick Children
Gavin Nicholl, Chief Planning and Development Officer, The Hospital for Sick Children

10:15 AM |  Crafting Highly Specialized Environments for the most Fragile Patients

Elizabeth van den Brink, ZGF

10:45 AM | BREAK

11:00 AM |  Designing the Future of Pediatric Care: Global Lessons from Canada and the UK

What does it take to create truly future-ready pediatric hospitals? This session explores two ambitious healthcare initiatives – a Canadian provinces-led international review of pediatric facility standards and the UK’s New Hospital Programme (NHP), the largest hospital-building initiative in a generation.

In Canada, a comprehensive review of international pediatric guidance and benchmarking of world-leading hospitals revealed critical gaps in provincial standards. By analysing global best practice and engaging with clinicians, operators, and designers, the team identified key strategies to improve consistency, adaptability, and family-centred care. These findings are shaping recommendations to future proof pediatric hospitals across Canada – and potentially beyond.

Meanwhile, the NHP showcases how sustained collaboration accelerates innovation. Through co-design frameworks and global stakeholder engagement, families, clinicians, and architects have worked together to reimagine care environments. A Neonatal Care case study illustrates how this approach improves outcomes, patient experience, and operational efficiency.

Delegates will gain actionable insights on embedding user engagement, translating international best practice to local contexts, and designing adaptable, compassionate, and evidence-based pediatric facilities. At its heart, this session is a call to collaborate, innovate, and design with children and families at the centre.

12:00 PM | LUNCH

1:00 PM | AFTERNOON KEYNOTE: Deborah Richardson, Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Health

Audience Q and A

1:45 PM | Breaking the Silo: How One Room Sparked System-Level Change

Discover how a unique partnership between Lakeridge Health and Grandview Kids turned a gap in pediatric care into a model for collaboration, innovation and patient-centered design. What began as a single procedure room became a catalyst for rethinking how healthcare organizations can work together across silos, systems and scopes of practice to better serve families.

This conversation will highlight the power of relationships, the importance of engaging partners early, and the real-world impact of doing healthcare differently.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify strategies for cross-organizational collaboration that prioritize patient needs and fill care gaps in innovative ways.
2. Describe how capital projects can be leveraged as opportunities to rethink service delivery and overcome traditional silos.
3. Recognize the value of early engagement, including with patients, families and clinical teams, in co-designing care environments.
4. Understand the role of leadership, trust and personal relationships in enabling systems-level change, especially in smaller or resource-limited organizations.

Tab Carroll, Health System Executive, Clinical, Lakeridge Health
Jamie Cook, Principal, Colliers Project Leaders
Tom McHugh, Chief Executive Officer, Grandview Kids

2:30 PM | BREAK

2:45 PM | Little cities of health, not machines for healing – an urban approach to the design of children’s hospitals

Thinking of hospitals in urban terms not only transforms the way they are experienced once complete but also makes the process of designing them more accessible and engaging for non-experts. The idea of the hospital as a little city is an inclusive vision recognising the full range of its social scope, not just as a place of healing but also work, learning, respite, play and interaction. A single institution embracing many smaller domains, all with their own front door and sense of identity.

Benedict Zucchi, Principal and Head of Architecture, BDP

3:30 PM | Panel: Mental health design across the continuum of care as part of whole person care in health facilities for youth and children
Shary Adams, Healthcare Practice Area Leader, Gensler
Nzinga Watson, Executive Director,  Stella’s Place

4:15 PM |Ensuring safe transitions from childhood to adult for complex care patients using an innovative co-design approach at SickKids (TBC)     

Natasha Bruno, PhD Student at the University of Toronto and Clinical Research Project Manager, The Hospital for Sick Children

Angie Lim, Clinical Nurse Specialist – Interprofessional Practice (CNS-IP) Research Associate; Post-Doctorate Fellow, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children

Three Innovation Areas for Physician Back-of-House Workspace Ecosystems

Building on JLL Design’s proven transformative campus space planning methodologies, this session focuses specifically on Physician Workspace Ecosystems – an approach to creating cost-efficient office environments that provide physicians with the right tools and spaces to complete their non-clinical work effectively.

Susan Chang, Senior Vice-President, Workplace Design Advisory, JLL Design Americas
Ian McDermott, Vice-President, Facilities and Capital Development, Sinai Health

4:50 Conference Wrap Up

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Networking Reception 

5:00 – 6:00 PM | Sim Lab Tours 

Day 2 – November 28, 2025

8:00 AM | Networking Breakfast

Network with your peers, enjoy a hot breakfast and walk around the table tops in the foyer

9:00 AM | Welcome

9:05 AM | Escalation of Construction costs for healthcare facilities is unhealthy and doesn’t add up

Susan Neil, President, Hanscomb

9:35 AM | Panel: Given the current situation for escalating costs what are strategies owners, constructors and architects can employ to reduce construction costs?

Moderator: Cliff Harvey, Vice President, Redevelopment, Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN)

Wayne Ferguson, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Infrastructure Services, EllisDon

David Ho, National Leader, Healthcare & Buildings, Accenture Infrastructure and Capital Projects

Michael Keen, Vice-President Facilities Planning and Chief Planning Officer, Unity Health Toronto

Susan Neil, President, Hanscomb

10:15 AM | BREAK

10:30 AM | 

11: 15 AM | Facilitated Round Table Discussions

12:00 PM | LUNCH

1:00 PM |

1:45   North York’s New Patient Tower and New Procurement Model Adoption of The Alliance – Rationale and Opportunities in the Ontario Marketplace 

Rudy Dahdal, Vice-President, Planning, Redevelopment and Clinical Support, North York General Hospital

Chris Killer, Infrastructure Ontario, Vice-President, Commercial Management

2:15 

3:00 PM | Conference Close

3:00 PM | Tour at the Peter Gilgan Research and Learning Centre and Patient Support Centre Tower (TBC)

One of the the largest health centre in the world devoted to children’s health research. Within the 21-storey tower, more than 2,000 scientists and staff — previously scattered in six different locations — are conducting state-of-the-art research in genomics, cancer research, stem cell research, brain behaviour research, and organ research.

*Agenda subject to change. Stay tuned for more details!

Pre-Conference Symposium – November 26, 2025 – *Tickets sold separately

Location – Courtyard Marriott Downtown Toronto – 475 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4Y 1X7

Symposium – Call for Presenters

How do we Optimize and Ensure Elevated Health Design?

Including discussions about the implications of standards and elevating health design.

With limited health care budgets, and expanding hospital needs jurisdictions are looking towards standardization processes to plan, design construct and deliver healthcare projects.

The symposium will bring together leaders to share insights on their approach in standardization.  Stay tuned for updates as we confirm speakers.

*Limited Capacity

Materials and more information to follow.

The conference program will include interactive sessions, panels, and a reception. Please join your healthcare facility sector network. Where real issues, innovative thought leadership and ideas are discussed for a better future of healthcare facilities supporting better care – together. Join Us!

More information will be available soon! Register by October 15th and get 10% the regular registration price and an additional 10% off for groups of three or more. This offer cannot be combined with other offers.

HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS

A select number of rooms have been set aside for our out-of-town conference attendees at the Courtyard Marriott Downtown Toronto – 475 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4Y 1X7. To take advantage of our special room rates, reservations must be made by October 29, 2025.

• Online Booking: Use the dedicated reservation website:  Guests can make, modify, and cancel their hotel reservations through this link.
• Phone Booking: Call 1-888-236-2427 or 1-801-468-4000 (for Marriott Bonvoy members) to reserve by phone.

AUDIENCE

• Healthcare leaders in Facilities & Redevelopment, Corporate Services, CEO, CFO’s
• Clinical Leads (CMIOs, Nursing, Medical leads)
• Capital Planning leaders and Project Directors
• ICAT / IMIT Leaders
• Design / Build Executives
• Constructors / Project Managers
• Consulting / Design Engineers
• Architects
• Planning Consultants
• Infection Control Professionals
• Quality and Patient Safety
• Occupational Health and Safety
• Capital Planners, Infrastructure Planners
• Hospital Service Providers
• Energy Services Companies
• Healthcare Vendors

Note: Speakers and topics may change based on their availability. CCHF makes every effort to only publish confirmed speakers.

CANCELLATION POLICY
Fees are non-refundable. Registrants may be replaced by a colleague of the same organization, if written notification is given prior to the event. Note that CCHF does not guarantee all speakers. There may be substitutions due to availability or the need to make program changes. In the highly unlikely event of a program cancellation, CCHF will credit your company for the same value of the next event in your area.