Our Year

Building on our proud legacy of care and innovation, this past year, London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) celebrated a number of medical firsts and award-winning initiatives, and also realized important outcomes through dynamic partnerships. Through these achievements, LHSC helped to improve patient care and the patient/family experience, and strengthen system capacity to better support the population health care needs. Examples include:

Three male surgeons in blue hospital gowns operating on a patient who is laying down on an operating table.

Nine patients received a total of 11 life-saving organ transplants over Easter weekend. It took a dedicated team to help save so many lives – the operating rooms at University Hospital barely stopped during the entire weekend with more than 72 hours required for those transplant surgeries.
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Male doctor in white doctor coat and blue head mask standing beside a woman with short red hair in front of a piece of hospital equipment.

The colorectal surgery team performed the first robotic ventral rectopexy in Canada to successfully treat a debilitating condition called obstructive defecation syndrome (ODS). This new, minimally invasive procedure allows patients to see immediate, life changing results, and requires only an overnight stay in hospital.
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Two men in suits and ties standing with a woman in a suit in front of a board room, smiling.

Dr. Guido Filler, Chief of Paediatrics, was selected by the Ontario Telemedicine Network as the inaugural Champion of Telemedicine Award winner, recognizing his outstanding leadership in advancing patient care. Telemedicine is the use of technology for patients to receive care remotely, without needing to go to the doctor’s office, and it is changing the way patients are treated in Ontario.
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Newborn baby in a white shirt, striped pants, and knitted hat, laying among purple knitted caps.

An outstanding 14,000 knitted purple caps were donated to LHSC during the Period of PURPLE Crying, which aims to raise awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome. The hats were donated by individuals from coast to coast, and as far away as the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland and Switzerland, and will be distributed to babies born at LHSC.
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Young mother wearing glasses holding her newborn baby in a reclined hospital chair shortly after birth.

LHSC’s Children’s Hospital held its first ever Kangaroo-A-Thon to increase awareness of the importance of skin-to-skin holding, or kangaroo care, for premature or ill infants and their families.
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Five male doctors in scrubs sitting around a laptop and holding a small patient implant device.

The Cardiac Program was the first in North America to implant Medtronic’s Engager Valve in a transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) procedure. The minimally invasive procedure restores normal blood flow through the heart and the rest of the body and reduces leakage around the valve.
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Female nurse with blonde hair assisting a gentleman patient at a dialysis chair.

Julie Ann Lawrence, Nurse Practitioner in the Peritoneal Dialysis Program, was chosen as one of nine Human Touch Award recipients by the Ontario Renal Network and Cancer Care Ontario. The Human Touch Awards are presented to deserving front-line kidney and cancer health care professionals, providers and volunteers from across the province for providing exceptional, compassionate patient care.
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Female nurse in hospital scrubs looking at a computer screen at a nurse station.

LHSC has led the way in connecting our community health-care partners through ClinicalConnect™ which was implemented throughout eHealth Ontario’s Connecting South West Ontario Program, for which LHSC is the program manager. Today, authorized health care professionals across our region have secure, real-time access to their patients’ integrated health records. Information from 67 hospital sites, the four community care access centres, the four regional cancer programs and provincial lab and diagnostic imaging centres is available electronically.
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Five female hospital staff members dressed in casual work clothes smiling while holding a pug breed dog.

A new Pet Therapy Initiative was launched at LHSC as part of the Medicine Program’s commitment to creating and enhancing a senior-friendly environment. Igor the dog and his handler, Tracey Silverthorn, regularly visit elderly patients in the Sub Acute Medicine Unit, creating smiles and reducing feelings of isolation and melancholy for patients.
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Two men in suits standing on either side of a female with blonde hair accepting an award that is made of glass and shaped like a rain drop.

LHSC was recognized at the national Canadian Blood Services “Honouring Our Lifeblood” event for its contribution to Canada’s blood system. As one of the country’s top ten users of blood products, and the third largest in Ontario, LHSC joined Canadian Blood Services’ Partners for Life program as a way to educate physicians and staff about the direct link between donors and patients.
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White haired man in a doctor’s white lab coat holding a small glass award standing beside a woman in a black dress shirt.

Dr. Michael Sharpe, an Intensivist in Critical Care Medicine at LHSC, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from Trillium Gift of Life Network. The award is presented to a physician who is a strong advocate for organ and tissue donation in the hospital and community, who mentors other hospital staff and physicians on the importance of organ donation and who has demonstrated on-going dedication to advancing donation practices.
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