Moving towards a New Vision for Healthcare: The McGill University Health Centre, Montreal

Five hospitals affiliated with McGill University, in Montreal (Quebec), explored how they might share services for the benefit of their combined communities. These included a children’s hospital, two general (adult care) hospitals, a respiratory care hospital ,and a neurological hospital. It quickly became clear that the physical facilities constituted a major obstacle in achieving the goal. A preliminary feasibility study resulted in a recommendation to merge the institutions and to consolidate all activities onto a single, new site. The new name is the McGill University Health Centre. This paper presents some of the challenges encountered and lessons learned as the team worked to incorporate the interests of patients, staff, government and others into the overall plan, and to educate key constituencies about modern health care design. This paper describes strategies used to generate support for the project within the internal and external communities, where there have traditionally been strong attachments to the existing hospitals.