What We Do
The Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV) is a living laboratory for health system solutions in Ontario and beyond.
Whether it’s evaluating an app that allows patients with chronic kidney disease to order supplies and manage dialysis at home or using big data to improve medication safety for vulnerable communities, WIHV is responding to today’s most pressing health issues through research insights and solutions.
Our Areas of Work
Working with stakeholders inside the health system and innovators from the private sector, WIHV identifies the ground-breaking approaches that address gaps in our healthcare system. Our work supports solutions that make care more convenient, more effective, and less costly to deliver.
Our areas of work include:
- Women's College Hospital (WCH) clinical evaluation
- Virtual care & digital health evaluation
- Health system & policy innovation
- Implementation science
Our Advice
For many organizations operating outside of the healthcare system, it can seem like a black box. Not having the right information can hold up the design of a new digital health tool or model of care that could be beneficial to providers and/or patients.
At the same time, leaders working inside the healthcare system may not have the time to invest in deciding which tools to use and how to properly integrate them into clinics and hospitals.
With each project we take on, we look to make sure that new tools or models of care align closely with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Quadruple Aim framework, ticking each of these boxes:
- Improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction);
- Improving provider experience;
- Improving the health of populations; and
- Reducing or holding the per capita cost of healthcare constant.
An Equity Lens
The WIHV Equity Committee believes that healthcare research must address the diverse needs and experiences of all patients to have the most impact. The WIHV Equity Committee:
- Strives to incorporate an inclusive and equitable perspective in our research
- Encourages WIHV’s partners and clients to apply an equity lens in their work with our Institute
- Advocates for a greater focus on equity within health research, particularly in the field of virtual care and digital health
- Is committed to working with and learning from people with lived experience, pursuing meaningful collaborations with diverse populations and values-aligned organizations
For more information on our equity committee, please email WIHVEquity@wchospital.ca
