With rising costs, evolving tariffs, and ongoing post-COVID challenges, healthcare facility projects are under increasing pressure. This conference focuses on strategies to keep projects moving forward while staying true to our shared vision of patient-focused, resilient, and adaptable healthcare infrastructure.

CCHF is excited to host healthcare facility leaders from across Canada to discuss critical issues, share innovative solutions, and explore strategic approaches through expert panels, presentations, and facilitated discussions.

Bring your teams and engage in high-impact conversations with industry leaders and designers navigating these challenges. Let’s shape the future of healthcare facilities together.

Join Us for CCHF’s Annual Vancouver Conference!

Connect – Share – Innovate

Draft Conference Agenda

Day 1 – May 15, 2025

8:00 – 8:50 AM | Networking Breakfast

Network with your peers, enjoy a hot breakfast

8:50 – 9:00 AM | Introductions & Welcome / Opening Remarks 

Co-Chairs 

Gordon Burrill, President, Teegor Consulting
Noor Esmail, Chief Project Officer & Executive Director / Burnaby Hospital Redevelopmen

9:00 – 9:30 AM | Building for the Future: Fraser Health’s Strategic Growth in Healthcare Capital Investments and Facilities

Fraser Health Authority, the fastest-growing health authority in British Columbia, is leading a significant wave of health capital investments to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding population. With over 48,000 staff, medical professionals, and volunteers, Fraser Health is delivering both hospital and community-based services across the region.

As demand for healthcare services rises, strategic investments in new developments, facility upgrades, expanded bed capacity, operating rooms, and specialized care enhancements are shaping the future of healthcare delivery.

Sharat Chandra will provide insights into Fraser Health’s capital growth strategy, including:
Innovative Capital Approaches – Maximizing resources in a challenging fiscal landscape
Community Partnerships – Strengthening collaborations to enhance accessibility and outcomes
Technology Integration – Leveraging advancements to future-proof healthcare facilities

Sharat Chandra, Vice President, Strategic Capital Investments and Facilities, Fraser Health Authority

9:30 – 10:00 AM | Tariffs & Healthcare Procurement: Strategies for Cost Containment & Supply Chain Resilience

Rising tariffs and global supply chain disruptions continue to challenge the procurement of Furniture, Fixtures & Equipment (FF&E) for healthcare projects. As healthcare capital budgets are stretched further, innovative procurement strategies are essential to mitigate cost increases and maintain project timelines. Darren will share how PHSA and their partners are addressing these top of mind questions for your projects.

• How are tariffs and global supply chain disruptions impacting healthcare facility projects today?
• What procurement strategies have been most effective in controlling costs while ensuring timely delivery of critical FF&E?
• How can healthcare facility leaders work with procurement teams to prioritize project needs and avoid unnecessary delays?
• What collaborative models across provinces are helping to streamline healthcare equipment purchasing and manage cost escalation?
• What risk mitigation strategies can facilities adopt to ensure resilience in their procurement processes?

Darren Gray, Provincial Director of Category Management, Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), British Columbia

10:00 – 10:15 AM | BREAK

10:15 – 10:45 AM | Navigating Healthcare Construction in a Tariff-Driven, Inflationary Market: Contracting and Construction Perspectives

• Construction impacts and the industry response and how the industry is adapting
• Policy and system levels action, how are stakeholders collaborating
• What advise to future proof for market uncertainty
• Contracting strategies and risk management and favoured procurement
• Clauses to evolve and effective COVID era Strategies re supply chain and contracting practices
• Bring your Questions!Chris Aitcheson, President, British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA)Ajit Dhillon, Partner Norton, Rose, Fulbright

10:45 – 11:35 PM | Panel: Expanding Footprints, Shrinking Budgets – Navigating the New Reality in Healthcare Infrastructure

As healthcare facility footprints expand to meet growing patient demands, budgets are tightening, creating a critical challenge for capital planning, design, and construction. How can healthcare leaders balance space needs with financial constraints while ensuring efficiency, sustainability, and high-quality patient care?

This panel brings together industry experts to discuss practical strategies for maximizing value, optimizing space, and innovating under financial pressure.

Tariq Amlani, Vice-President, Global Health Sector Lead, Stantec
Stuart Elgie, Partner, DIALOG
TBC, EllisDon
Ian McDermott, Vice President, Facilities & Capital Development, Sinai Health System
Sharat Chandra, Vice President, Strategic Capital Investments and Facilities, Fraser Health Authority
Moderator, Christine Chadwick, Managing Partner, Archus Canada

11:35 – 12:30 PM | LUNCH

12:30 – 1:10 PM | Augmented Intelligence: Case Studies for technology-augmented design of healthcare facilities

Artificial intelligence and advanced parametrics are commonly used to solve complicated and multi-faceted problems, to generate and control complex geometries, or to minimize tedious and repetitive tasks in architectural production. At times, these tools are used to create architecture that is defined too strictly by its data, that is unresponsive to the unique conditions each specific site or stakeholder group, or that has gestural expression as its primary goal, creating a self-referential, branded architecture of gimmickry and mannerism into which its program and uses must uncomfortably fit.

But how could these computational tools be used differently to deeply analyze, interpret and reflect the character of a place and users? How can we redeploy these tools to produce more sensitive architecture that is fundamentally shaped by its context rather than imposed on it? How could our increasingly sophisticated technology be redirected towards creating architecture that is fully emergent from its specific cultural setting, that reinterprets the surrounding local vernacular provocatively, and that responds more intelligently to the environmental and climactic conditions that are unique to each project’s context?

The presentation will explore the ways in which advanced AI and computational tools were deployed in the architectural design of specific case studies including The Ottawa Hospital, iKure Health Hub, Kingston’s Health Sciences Centre, Detroit’s Henry Ford Health Centre, and London’s Health Sciences Centre. These case studies explore how tools improve the planning and engagement process, efficiency of clinical design planning, and predictive simulation of environmental performance.

Key Learning Objectives:

• How to incorporate technology and AI to improve engagement with stakeholders
• How simulation can be used to improve efficiency and performance of architectural design.

Jason Heinrich, HDR, Design Performance Leader

Barbara Miszkiel, HDR, National Healthcare Practice Leader

1:10 – 1:50 PM | Design and Development of a smart Healthcare Facility: How the team at the new Surrey Hospital and BC Cancer Centre are Planning for the Future

The new Surrey Hospital and BC Cancer Centre Design-Build team, alongside Fraser Health have begun construction on this new, fully electric, smart healthcare facility. The team has invested significant time into future proofing the facility to accommodate for a full spectrum of advanced technologies including a mobile app to integrate wayfinding, RTLS, automation of the AGV’s and future adaptability to emerging technologies to enhance hospital operations and patient outcomes. Healthcare FM teams are charged with continuously optimizing patient experience, whole-life asset condition, energy performance against cost and resource constraints. Technology, and a data/condition-based approach to asset management, is changing the way we enable clinical excellence.

Learn about:

1. What is required from the integrated design and construction team to deliver an advance, high-tech healthcare facility, while also planning for future integration?
2. Simulation Lab: Understanding the importance leveraging a Simulation Lab in supporting constructability of technology requirements and reducing deployment risk.
3. Aligning patient and user journey’s through the design process.
4. Incorporating advances planning to meet growing community needs and share the patient journey keeping care providers informed in every step.

Betina Albornoz, Chief Project Officer and Executive Director, Major Capital Projects, Fraser Health Authority

Megan Angus, Senior Vice-President, Strategy and Digital Services, Vice-President, Angus Connect, HH Angus

Justin Hantos,   Western Director Operations, Canada, EllisDon 

Cameron McPhadden, Senior Design Manager, EllisDon

1:50  – 2:30 PM |  Panel: Building Resilient Healthcare Systems – Lessons in Emergency Management & Collaboration

As healthcare systems face increasing challenges from natural disasters, pandemics, and economic pressures, resilience has become a critical priority. Leaders from across different regions will share how they collaborate, develop emergency management strategies, and strengthen both infrastructure and operations to ensure healthcare facilities can withstand and adapt to crises.

This panel will explore the intersection of hard resilience (structural and infrastructural adaptations) and soft resilience (staffing, logistics, and operational strategies) in maintaining agile, crisis-ready healthcare systems.

Cathy Junda, Health Sector Digital Technology Practice Leader, Stantec
Maddy Laberge, Manager, Vancouver Coastal Health, and Providence Health, Health Emergency Management, British Columbia (HEMBC)
Jeff Martin, Provincial Director, Emergency & Continuity Management, Shared Health Manitoba
Moderator: Veronica Owens, Senior Advisor, Sustainability, WSP

2:30 – 2:45 PM | BREAK

2:45 – 3:30 PM | Resiliency Strategies to Meet Climate Change Demands: A design comparison / contrast

3:30 – 4:15 PM | Lions Gate Hospital Operational Readiness Planning for Opening Day and Beyond

The new Paul Myers Tower is a new acute care facility at Lions Gate Hospital that opened to patients on March 9, 2025. Operational readiness planning began in 2023 to ensure that the staff was prepared for the move and for operations in the new tower. The presentation will provide an overview of the work done by the Redevelopment Team before, during and after transition.

Learning objectives:

• Lessons learned from the transition to operations – clinical and facilities perspectives
• Considerations for the first month of operations

Jill Brimacombe, Senior Project Director, Paul Myers Tower, Vancouver Coastal Health
Shelly Fleck, Chief Clinical Planning Officer, Major Redevelopment and Expansion Projects, Lions Gate Hospital, Vancouver Coastal Health

4:15 – 4:30 PM | Conference Close

4:30 – 6:00 PM | Networking Reception at JW Parq Marriott

5:15 – 6:00 PM | Guided Tour at Lions Gate Hospital (limited capacity)

Day 2 – May 16, 2025

8:00 – 8:45 AM | Networking Breakfast

Network with your peers, enjoy a hot breakfast

Welcome

9:15 – 10:00 | Insights Into The University Hospital of Northern British Columbia (UHNBC) Acute Care Tower Project

Ministry of Health approved the University Hospital of Northern B.C. (UHNBC) Acute Care Tower Project (Project) in August 2024. The Project will be delivered via the Alliance Model. The Project includes the design and construction of a new Acute Care Tower (Tower) on the Health Unit Site connected to the existing hospital to accommodate Cardiac, Surgical, and Mental Health Services as well as food services, materiel management, loading, and underground parking.
The Project represents an opportunity to not only replace the aging infrastructure of the existing hospital, but also an opportunity to rethink the delivery of acute health care, particularly in the context of providing tertiary acute care services to a widely dispersed geographic population. Access to care close to home is a strong imperative and driver behind key decisions.

Learning objectives:
Early learnings implementing the Alliance Model in Northern Health
Development of Full service Cardiac Services in a Health Authority where Cardiac services does not exist
Designing for the future on a constrained site:
Early collaboration between Capital Planning and Clinical Operations: The changing face of care services

Sunil Kanamala, Chief Project Officer, Northern Health
Sherri Tillotson, Senior Clinical Planning Officer, Northern Health,

10:00 – 10:50 | Overview of the New CSA Standards Healthcare Facilities Standards and Q & A

There has been a lot of Committee work on CSA standards in 2024 and more coming forward in 2025. CSA Z8000 standard for Healthcare Facility Design, Z8003 Healthcare Facility Design Studies and Post Occupancy Evaluation and CSA Z8008 Assessments of Healthcare Facilities, Services and Building Systems are all undergoing updates.

A panel session of leaders will share highlights for these standards, how you can get involved,  and will take questions from the audience.

Steve Bagworth, Managing Partner, Agnew Peckham Health Care & Facility Planners
Nick Stark, Executive Vice President, HH Angus and Associates
Sarah Thorn, Manager, Planning and Projects Facilities Management, Fraser Health Authority
Moderator, Gordon Burrill, President, Teegor Consulting

11:00 – 11:15 AM | Break

11:15 -AM  12:00 PM | Round Table discussions

12:00 – 1:00 PM | Lunch

1:15 PM | Wrap Up / Conference Close

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

The conference program will include interactive sessions, panels, a reception, and a guided tour of Lions Gate Hospital. 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 April 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. 

Pre-Conference Alliance Model Workshop – May 14, 2025 (Tickets Sold Separately)

9:00 AM -12:00 PM | Presented by Infrastructure BC

Kickstart your experience with an exclusive, hands-on workshop focusing on key topics in healthcare infrastructure planning and innovation.

The Infrastructure BC team will lead an in-depth session on the Alliance model, exploring its five key features with real-world examples from ongoing projects.

This hands-on session will explore the principles of effective collaboration, preparing you to work as part of a high-performing, integrated team.

The workshop includes a dynamic simulation exercise, where you’ll put learned principles and behaviours into practice. Infrastructure BC team members will observe, guide, and provide feedback to ensure you’re ready to apply Alliance principles effectively.

This is a must-attend session for healthcare leaders, capital planners, architects, and industry professionals looking to enhance their understanding of the Alliance process in a hands on session.

Workshop & Conference Location:

Parq Marriott
39 Smith Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 0R3

Hotel Accomodations

A select number of rooms have been set aside for our out-of-town conference attendees at the JW Marriott Parq Vancouver. To take advantage of our special room rates, reservations must be made by April 14, 2025.

Online Booking: Use the dedicated reservation website: Book Now. 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.