Stories

Building the Future of Care Together: Planning is Underway!

19 September 2024

Building a new hospital, like the delivery of health care, is a team sport. Many team members must work together and be involved to achieve success.

On September 18^th, over 250 team members gathered at the University of Waterloo to kick-off Functional Programming. During this phase of the project, 42 hospital program teams, or user groups, are now working with a healthcare facility planning consultant, supported by a member of the BFCT Redevelopment Team to look at every program, service and activity that will be delivered in the new facility, and the resources and space required to ultimately deliver those services. User groups began meeting the day after the kick-off at 8:00 am.

“There are a number of decisions in hospital building projects … in the tens of thousands,” said Cliff Harvey, Joint VP Redevelopment. “The decisions being made through Functional Programming will provide the architects and designers a clear guide for how the new facility needs to be designed and built.”

Functional Programming will include three sets of meetings with the 42 user groups through to early 2025. A final Functional Program document will be produced from the information gathered through this process.

The new hospital building will be built in three phases and with plans to expand well into the future.

After a busy and informative day, participants at the BFCT Functional Programming Kick-off event celebrate success!