Acute Care Short-term treatment for a severe injury, illness, urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery.
Critical Care Specialized treatment for people with life-threatenting injuries or illnesses.
Primary Care First point of contact care in the health care system usually a clinic or family doctor.
Community Care Services that help people to receive care at home instead of a hospital or long-term care facility.
Academic Health Sciences Centre A partnership between one or more universities and health care providers focussing on research, clinical services, education and training.
Integrated Care A global trend in health care aimed at reducing fragmentation of services and enabling better more coordinated and continuous care.

the new St. Pauls

Clinical Support and Research Centre

Clinical Support and Research Centre

Our new health innovation hub at the St. Paul’s Hospital campus known, for now, as the Clinical Support and Research Centre (CSRC), will be the cornerstone and economic driver for Vancouver’s newest health innovation district for discovery and learning in the False Creek Flats area.

Directly adjacent to the future hospital, the CSRC will be a state-of-the-art research, technology and medical complex which will allow St. Paul’s Hospital to further embed research and innovation into everything we do. Over the years, we’ve been vanguards in many areas, and the CSRC ensures we will continue to be at the forefront of medical advancements which improve the lives of people living in B.C. and people all over the world.

Think of the CSRC as a world-class facility that will be more than the sum of its parts. The CSRC will create an environment where Providence Health Care’s experts in medicine and research are brought together all under ‘one roof,’ working alongside each other creating synergies, sparking ideas, innovating new medical advancements and solving some of the world’s most pressing medical problems.

 

A game-changer for Vancouver and Canada

The CSRC aims to attract  innovative scientists and medical thought leaders with state-of-the-art core research facilities including wet labs, specimen biobanks and analytic data centres, and other amenities such as on-site childcare centre, retail, and facilities to support cyclists. Plus, at its heart, is an Innovation Centre with ‘sandbox’ prototyping space designed to encourage collaboration and discovery.

All this will be just steps away from BC’s most modern hospital featuring the latest advances in technology. Located on the edge of downtown Vancouver, the CSRC makes it easy to connect with patients interested in participating in clinical trials to help us further medical science and transform care.

Those medical breakthroughs might be in the areas where St. Paul’s Hospital and Providence Research already have internationally recognized centres of excellence in chronic disease, mental health, emerging health issues like COVID-19, or in our areas of patient-centred research driven by social justice.

With so much to offer, the CSRC will be THE place in BC for the best and brightest minds with the drive to pursue excellence for the greater good.

 

What’s next for the CSRC?

Planning for the CSRC continues to move forward. Click here for the latest updates.

Research

Our plans for the CSRC may sound ambitious, but St. Paul’s Hospital is over 125 years old and has a proud and distinguished history of research and innovation, with clinicians and researchers, many affiliated with the University of British Columbia or Simon Fraser University, working side by side and driven by a shared commitment to the people we serve.

The hospital has led the way for treatments to stop people from dying from HIV/AIDS; pioneered TAVI, the minimally-invasive heart valve replacement procedure; lead North America in improving the lives of people dealing with chronic lung disease; and is developing ways to test, treat and prevent the effects of long COVID.

Our vision for Providence Research includes future-forward areas like bioengineering, nanotechnology, augmented and virtual reality clinical simulation, 3D-bioprinting and artificial intelligence/machine learning biostatistics.

Many of our advancements to date have been borne out of less than ideal and aging facilities, which is a testament to the talents, incredible determination and passion of our team. A team that includes 1,000+ researchers, 1,200 medical staff and 2,000 students who serve a hospital with over 500,000 patient visits a year – with many of these patients participating in research.

At Providence, we spark better ideas by bringing diverse people together. Imagine what’s possible in a new modern facility with state-of-the-art technology, dry and wet labs, specimen biobanking, data access and services, special medical practices, and more, all co-located right next to the patients we serve.

With the talents, synergies, and diversity of vital players in one place, we can create a community of healthcare research innovators and create an environment where we can spark ideas, empower even more impactful ground-breaking scientific and clinical advancement, and more rapidly bring innovations to market to redefine better health and care globally.

Learn more about Providence Research and our research centres of excellence here.

Innovation

Innovation is more than a buzzword for us. Innovation, research, and advancing patient-centred care are part and parcel of what we do at Providence Health Care and St. Paul’s Hospital. Our history is filled with courageous people overcoming massive obstacles to save lives, and we’re a founding member in Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster, located within the Pacific Northwest’s expanding Cascadia Innovation Corridor.

The Clinical Support and Research Centre (CSRC) will help support our culture that makes learning, improving, and making an impact part of everything we do.

At the CSRC’s heart will be an Innovation Centre – a collaboration hub with a variety of meeting spaces and sandboxing prototyping areas all designed to be a symbiotic and social ecosystem that brings people out of their labs and offices into a space that inspires them to share their ideas, creativity, problem-solving, projects and discovery.

As a health innovation hub, the CSRC will bring a vibrant research community together within the CSRC to discover, create and innovate preventions, treatments, and cures that can directly impact the health of patients and communities.

The new CSRC and its strategic partnering potential will be a catalyst to maximize opportunities to forge ahead into new frontiers of medical research such as bioengineering, augmented and virtual reality, and simulation with infrastructure for nanotechnology, device prototyping, 3D bio-printing, and clinical trials.

Continuum of Care

At Providence, everything starts with the patient and ends with the patient. We’re committed to providing patients with the highest quality, integrated, innovative, and patient-centred care where and when they need it most. The Clinical Support and Research Centre (CSRC) will help us do just that.

Medical offices for some of our physicians and specialists will be in the CSRC rather than in the hospital, ensuring we maximize the capacity within the hospital for acute care patients, while still ensuring patients are close to compassionate, integrated, culturally sensitive care as they transition from the hospital, to outpatient care, and to community and primary care. Working side-by-side in the CSRC will also be our corporate services, providing essential support to help keep our care and services running.

The CSRC will play an important role in the continuum of care on our campus. Just steps away from the hospital and connected by a skybridge, the CSRC will allow us to provide patients with the right care in the right place, in and outside the hospital.

 

Media Gallery

Rendering of the CSRC (view from southeast over the Civic Plaza). Courtesy of Diamond Schmitt.

 

To see all images of the new St. Paul’s Hospital and health campus, click here.

Support Us

St. Paul’s Foundation is committed to raising $50 million in support of the CSRC, our health innovation hub for discovery, research, and innovation at the Jim Pattison Medical Campus. If you’re interested in supporting the CSRC, learn more here.