Kelowna gets heath care innovation centre thanks to Jim Pattison

Interior Health and the Kelowna General Hospital Foundation (KGHF) have announced a new Centre for Health System Learning & Innovation aimed at improving healthcare in this region.

A $5 million commitment from the Jim Pattison Foundation will see a section of KGH transformed into the centre. It will allow clinical teams, researchers, patients, and families to work together to innovate health care solutions for the Interior Health population.

In a statement, B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix called it a “transformational step forward in reimagining front-line patient care in Indigenous, rural and remote communities.”

The gift is the Jim Pattison Foundation’s largest to a hospital in B.C.’s Interior.

A brief pre-recorded video message from the iconic business leader and prolific health-care philanthropist, now 95, was played at the official announcement.

“This gift is remarkably visionary,“ Dr. Devin Harris, an Emergency Physician at KGH and clinician scientist said in describing the new centre, which will primarily be a virtual network. “It’ll be like a research lab, where people can come together, design trials with patients and experts, and partner with IH to put in place improvements in healthcare.”

The $5 million gift adds to the KGH Foundation’s ‘Closer to home than you think’ campaign, which is a $40 million fundraising effort focused on areas including cancer, cardiac, women’s health and mental health.

“This investment gives us the resources and ability to establish a program that focuses on innovation,” Allison Young, CEO of the KGH Foundation explained. “So, taking ideas that exist or developing new ideas that will make patient care better.”