Healthcare systems across Canada are experiencing parallel pressures: aging infrastructure, escalating construction and equipment costs, workforce shortages, and care models evolving faster than the facilities designed to support them. Bottlenecks to care may manifest differently, but the shared challenges require shared innovative solutions across provinces and territories.

This CCHF conference theme in Vancouver will focus on how we can reduce shared bottlenecks through innovations and progress being made across provinces and beyond Canada’s jurisdiction, and on how we can continue to better align unlocked system capacity, improve flow, and deliver resilient, responsive, future-ready healthcare environments.

Background:

Healthcare systems are not constrained by a single bottleneck, but by a series of interconnected constraints spanning facilities, workforce, operations, and care models. Funding and staffing pressures are significant challenges; however, physical infrastructure and operational design decisions play a fundamental role in either amplifying or alleviating congestion, impacting the experience and quality of care for patients and staff. Intentional design from conception to completion of projects and through operational design can reduce patient and staff friction, integrate a positive ripple affect across the system.

Congestion and gaps in healthcare services is, at the very least, a drain on the staff and creates negative patient experiences. At its worst, at worst it can create negative health consequences impacting families and staff compounding a lack of confidence in the health system.

Understanding the ‘pinch points’ that create bottlenecks and addressing them to create synergistic pathways that serve patients and staff will unlock latent capacity, improve the patient experience, and increase staff satisfaction. This requires vision and not simply replicating the way we have done things before – relying on old planning, design and construction models to achieve different results.

Given technological advances, such as AI, telemedicine, and advanced care delivery models, and sustainable alternatives available and the pressures all publicly funded health systems are facing we need to seize the day and work collaboratively across disciplines and sectors to create responsive, dynamic capital projects from planning to delivery that optimizes resources, serves patient health needs and is supportive to staff  and those impacted in communities.

This 2 day conference structures discussions and presentations with healthcare owners, operators, architects, designers, engineers, constructors and policy leaders to share how these challenges are being met by improving alignment with the core business of health systems providing appropriate, timely care in the right environments.

Conference Objectives:

• Explore capacity bottlenecks across healthcare systems
• How design and engineering impacts flow
• Cross-provincial lessons in planning, procurement, and delivery
• Aligning facilities design with evolving models of care and workforce realities
• Strengthen collaboration between owners, designers engineers and constructors
• Embedding community and social values in design as integral to the systems design

Join Us for CCHF’s Annual Vancouver Conference!

Connect – Share – Innovate

Don’t miss our post-conference events on May 6!

Key Topics of Discussion:

Draft Conference Agenda – Please Check Back for Updates

The Training Session being held on May 6th will be introduced shortly

Day 1 

May 4, 2026

8:00 – 8:50 AM | Networking Breakfast

Network with your peers, enjoy a hot breakfast

8:50 – 9:15 AM | Opening Remarks

Co-Chairs 

Sessions

9:15 – 10:00 AM | Designing for Flow: Facilities as a operational tools

10:00 – 10:30 AM | BREAK

10:30 – 11:15 AM | Aligning Infrastructure with Evolving Models of Care

From acute centric care to system centric care

• Shifting to ambulatory, community and virtual settings
• Integrating mental health rehabilitation and wellness
• ‘Designing in’ interdisciplinary team based care
  Format: Moderated Round table discussion

11:15 – 12:00 PM | Facilitated Group Discussions from Acute Lens to System Design

• Sharing innovative approaches from your projects
• Problem solving tools applied

12:00 – 1:00 PM | | LUNCH

1:00 – 1:40 PM | Operational Readiness: Designing Capacity Without Building More

Workforce Centric Design Across Canada

• Supporting Staff through environment and process
• Safety, ergonomics and resilience in high stress environments
• Engineering that supports reliability and staff confidence
• IMIT that creates seamless coordination of patient info and reference tools for staff

1:30  – 2:00 PM | Digital Design Operational Challenges

Staff burnout and workforce attrition are among the most critical bottlenecks facing Canadian healthcare systems. While staffing levels and funding are often cited as root causes, digital friction, poorly integrated systems, and environments that increase cognitive load are significant—yet addressable—contributors to staff stress.

Many healthcare staff experience technology not as a support, but as a barrier.  These include:

• Fragmented digital systems and duplicated documentation
• Alarm fatigue, alert overload, and cognitive saturation
• Inefficient workflows caused by poor system integration
• The cumulative impact of digital friction on morale and retention

Discussion will highlight how IMIT decisions can either amplify stress or actively reduce it, depending on how they are planned and deployed.

2:00 – 2:30 PM | BREAK

3:00 – 3:45 PM |

The Physical–Digital Interface: Where Facilities and IMIT Meet

Staff resilience is shaped at the intersection of space and technology.

This segment explores:

• Point-of-care documentation and mobile workstations
• Visibility tools that reduce interruptions and unnecessary movement
• Smart room concepts and digital signage that support situational awareness
• Infrastructure requirements (power, data, wireless, redundancy) that enable reliable digital tools

Architects and engineers play a critical role in ensuring that digital systems are usable, reliable, and seamlessly embedded into care environments.

3:45 – 4:30 PM | Moderated Panel: Real Time Predicted Tools and  Operational Confidence: From Fire Fighting to Foresight 

Real-time data, predictive analytics, and centralized operational visibility can reduce uncertainty, improve confidence, and support staff resilience. We’ll look at how digital tools, when aligned with facilities and operations, can help teams move from firefighting to foresight.

4:30 – 5:00 Conference Close

5:30 – 6:30 PM | Networking Reception at JW Parq Marriott

Day 2 – May 5, 2026

8:00 – 8:50 AM | Networking Breakfast

Network with your peers, enjoy a hot breakfast

8:50 – 9:15 AM | Welcome and Key Outcomes of Day 1

Sessions

How architecture and engineering can enable or inhibit design

• Designing Beyond Silos
• Universal rooms, flexibility and standards
• Engineering systems that support adaptability and uptime
• Clinical flow into spatial and technical solutions
  Format: case studies

11:00 – 11:30 AM | BREAK

11:15 AM – 12:15 PM | Facilitated Round Table Discussions

12:15 – 1:15 PM | LUNCH

1:15 – 4:15 Sessions

4:15 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 TBC.

More information will be available soon!

Save on Your Registration:

• Register by February 14th: 10% off the regular price.
• Bring a team: Groups of three or more always receive 10% off.

These offers cannot be combined with other promotions.

Post-Conference May 6, 2026 (Tickets Sold Separately)

8:30 -9:00 AM | Coffee & Light Continental Breakfast

Round off your experience with our Post-Conference Events

Conference Location:

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

Hotel Accommodations

*Important Hotel Note: Due to high demand coinciding with the FIFA World Cup, we strongly advise booking your accommodations as soon as possible to secure availability and rates.

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 2nd, 2026 by 12PM noon PST. 

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.