Two of Guelph’s biggest institutions are partnering to help advance health care in the region.
The University of Guelph announced on Friday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Guelph General Hospital.
This partnership is to position the university and the hospital for the challenges that are impacting the health of the community. They add that while the two organizations have a history of collaboration, the MOU will leverage their strengths to overcome community challenges.
“I think some of the problems that are facing both organizations have really become front and centre,” Mark Watson, president and CEO of Guelph General Hospital, said on the reasons behind the partnership.
“Some of them are the social determinants of health, like housing and employment. We just saw it as a great opportunity to work together because it is an area that we both play and I think we can be stronger together.”
The areas that the MOU will cover include:
- Enhanced research and development efforts in health care, medicine, life sciences and related fields.
- Improved clinical care, patient outcomes and health-care delivery methods.
- Supporting education and training programs for medical professionals, students and researchers and exploring opportunities for inter-professional education.
- Fostering innovation and technology transfer between the health-care and academic sectors.
- Addressing community health needs through joint outreach and engagement activities.
“We believe that solution-oriented, collaborative partnerships are more important today than they’ve ever been,” Charlotte Yates, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Guelph, said in a statement.
“Research-intensive, learner-centred universities like U of G are ideal partners for health care providers as both work to address complex challenges and provide public value in a way that organizations and entire sectors simply can’t do alone.”
Watson believes some of the work the university has done on environmental sustainability, agriculture and veterinary services can be applied to what the hospital is doing.
“A lot of learnings that are there and how we can improve the health of humans and animals can be translated over to how we better deliver health-care services.”
Watson said they will look at accelerated learning and student placement models, including recently welcoming four students as part of U of G’s President’s Summer Co-op Initiative and two students as part of co-op work terms.
The university has said this partnership will provide expertise in One Health and team-based care to help solve health problems that can’t be easily addressed in traditional disciplinary silos, and leverage its research in rural community development to address inequities for rural centres.
“We can get our doctors, our services, all of our specialties, to be present for those rural areas where often they are both underserved and not necessarily have the same access that we do in Guelph,” Watson said.