Standards play a key role in the safety, design and functionality of health environments. They provide a common reference point across Canada, with common space requirements for adjacencies, functional program elements, and patient, staff, and visitor safety considerations. The panel will discuss their expert perspectives on the application of health design standards and future considerations for standards at the national and regional levels.
- Consistency in application of national standards and regional standards balance (over-standardized nationally but under-standardized provincially)
- Keeping up with more flexible care models, and the impacts that can be unintentionally caused related to locking in inefficiencies
- How should standards be applied (community, virtual ambulatory) to support distributed care versus centralized infrastructure
- Standards versus innovation tension
- Are we over-applying standards to lower acuity environments, and what is the cost?
- Date:May 5, 2026
- Time:2:45 pm
- Event:Breaking through Bottlenecks: Unlocking Health Capacity
