Humber River Regional Hospital

Scheduled to open in late 2015, Humber River Regional Hospital will be the first fully digital hospital in North America. It will serve more than 850,000 residents in the northwest Greater Toronto Area, and at approximately 1.7 million sq ft, it will be the largest acute-care hospital in the area. It is being designed for LEED Silver certification.

Patients and visitors will be able to easily access information throughout the hospital via kiosks or mobile devices. In patient rooms, Integrated Bedside Terminals (IBTs) will allow patients to control their environment, order meals, and communicate with caregivers and family members via video. Voice recognition software will allow doctors and nurses to complete charts verbally.

Novita is responsible for the design of all audio visual systems in the hospital, comprising a major part of the facility's digital environment. Our work will have a direct impact on people's individual experiences.

One of our tasks is to ensure that individual communication devices (eg. smartphones, PDAs)  are seamlessly integrated with monitor screens. Monitors, connected to the hospital's information systems, will be located throughout the hospital – in patient rooms, hallways, nurse stations, public and staff lounges, and meeting rooms. Monitors will be configured to receive user input, varying according to the specific needs in a space. For example, in patient rooms the monitors will accept input from the IBT and staff PDAs.

There are also many meeting rooms and learning spaces. We are designing easy-to-use systems for presentations, videoconferencing, and distance learning.