Our Emergency Departments are seeing high volumes of patients and long wait times. If your issue is non-urgent, there are other options available to you: knowyourcareoptions.ca.
Our Emergency Departments are seeing high volumes of patients and long wait times. If your issue is non-urgent, there are other options available to you: knowyourcareoptions.ca.
A Unified Vision for Outstanding, Personalized, Seamless Care
Over the next three years, WRHN will build the strong foundations required to operate as one network—advancing quality, equity, and access for a rapidly growing region. Built by listening to team members, patients, partners, and community, this plan puts patients and families at the heart of everything we do. Every goal, every priority, and every action is focused on delivering care that is compassionate, inclusive, and outstanding.
Our future is Outstanding Care That Is Personal, Seamless, and Reimagined.
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We are one network. Here for every person in this community, in every season of life.
For over 90 years, Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital partnered to care for patients. Through engagement with thousands of patients, families, team members, physicians, partners, and community members on how we can better care for our growing community, it became clear that the question was no longer “if” we would merge, but “how.”
On April 1, 2025, Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) was formed. The shift from “Hospital” to “Health Network” reflects a broader understanding of healthcare as a team-based effort that extends beyond hospital walls, into homes and communities.
Just as our merger was informed through extensive engagement, WRHN’s inaugural three-year Strategic Plan—and our shared vision for the next ten years through our Future, Purpose and Values: one team, one values-based culture, and one approach to seamless, integrated care. Shaped by the diverse voices of those we care for and work alongside, our three directions focus on building thriving teams, advancing personalized care and building our network for better health. Our plans reflect who we are today, where we are going tomorrow, and how we’ll get there, together.
Waterloo Region is projected to reach one million residents by 2050. Meeting future demand will require more than expanding hospital capacity. It calls for new models of care, innovation and technology, strong partnerships, and diverse voices to improve access, outcomes, and sustainability. It requires us to lead boldly, seek better ways to care and heal, built on a culture of putting people first.
We are deeply grateful to the communities we serve and work with for supporting our merger and helping define our shared priorities. As we move forward, our commitment remains to listen, learn, and work together, honouring our proud legacies and creating a future of outstanding care that’s personal, seamless and reimagined.
Janet Davidson, Board Chair Ron Gagnon, CEO, President
Our Future
Outstanding care that’s personal, seamless and reimagined.
Our Purpose
Lead boldly, serve with compassion, consistently deliver high-quality care, and partner to advance health for all
Our Values
Opportunity to Meet Current and Future Needs
Waterloo Region is one of Canada’s fastest-growing areas, with increasing healthcare needs and uneven access to care. Meeting the current and future needs of patients requires more than additional beds—it calls for an integrated, innovative approach to care delivery. By aligning hospital teams and services around one way to care for patients, we can improve collaboration, consistency, and the overall patient and team member experience. Looking ahead, with the right tools, training, support, and infrastructure, our teams will enhance the delivery of equitable, high-quality care when and where it’s needed. Partnerships—such as those with the University of Waterloo, the KW4 Ontario Health Team, and others—will help drive innovation, strengthen research and talent, and modernize our facilities, enabling us to close care gaps and build better health for all.
WRHN serves 10% of Ontarians through our Regional Programs.
By 2041, it is expected that about 1 in 4 residents will be 65 years of age or older.
At WRHN, 254 more beds are needed to meet the Canadian average.
Waterloo Region is projected to reach one million residents by 2050.
At WRHN, 145 more beds are needed today to match the provincial average (beds/1,000).
WRHN cares for more than 259,000 patients each year.
Across our three hospital sites, community locations, and partnered hubs, and with a new hospital site planned at the University of Waterloo, we continue to expand our reach and impact to better serve our growing community.
At WRHN, we are one network of care with one focus: the health of our communities. WRHN serves over 1.4 million residents across Waterloo Region and beyond, delivering care at our Midtown, Queen’s Blvd., and Chicopee sites, and in community-based sites and partnered hubs.
While we continue to plan for our new hospital site at the University of Waterloo Campus, we remain focused on innovative, patient-centred care today, ensuring every individual feels supported, connected, and an active voice throughout their health journey.
Learn more on our healthcare services and locations:
To meet growing demand, WRHN is planning to construct a new acute care hospital and redeveloping existing sites, expanding services and capacity while continuing to provide high-quality care to a rapidly growing region. Pending government approval, we will design and build facilities for future generations of healthcare workers and patients right here in Waterloo Region.
Over 2 million Ontarians will rely on our new hospital for care in the next 20 years. WRHN’s New Infrastructure will provide:
Behind every great plan are the people and priorities that bring it to life.
At WRHN, three strategic directions shape everything we do — Thriving Teams Deliver Outstanding Care, Advance Personalized Care, and Build Our Network for Better Health.
By 2029, team members and patients will experience one unified WRHN in action: one team, one shared values-based culture, and one coordinated and consistent approach to care.
Every team member, in every role, contributes to patient care. When people feel valued and supported, they thrive and can provide the best care possible.
WRHN will be a place where people want to work and grow their careers — where learning, leadership, respect, and inclusion are part of everyday practice. We will engage our team members and use innovation to improve processes, test better ways of working, and scale solutions that advance AI-enabled operations and care, strengthening team experience and retention.
Where We’ll Focus
In the Medical Device Reprocessing (MDR) department, Lisa exemplifies the future WRHN, a unified culture where every team member thrives and every patient receives exceptional care.
Behind every safe procedure and every sterile instrument, Lisa’s team works tirelessly behind the scenes to make patient care possible. Medical Device Reprocessing is the critical process of cleaning, sterilizing, and preparing surgical instruments and medical equipment so that every tool used in patient care is safe, every single time. It is demanding, detail-driven work that quite literally saves lives — and it takes a real team, deeply committed to one another and to the patients they never meet, to do it well. Lisa has built something remarkable in that space, a culture where being behind the scenes is never mistaken for being unimportant.
WRHN believes that when people feel valued and supported, they thrive — and when they thrive, they deliver outstanding care. Lisa builds this belief into everything she does. A monthly peer recognition program lets MDR technicians celebrate one another across sites. Huddle Boards have been refreshed with WRHN’s new brand, and she welcomes partnerships with Mohawk College, the University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University to ensure her team has every opportunity to learn and grow.
Lisa’s commitment to people does not stop at the hospital doors. She helps promote MDR by visiting local high schools, inspiring the next generation to consider a career in healthcare. She has also reached out to Women’s Crisis Services to share how training grants can open doors for women who are courageously rebuilding their lives and exploring new career paths. Through her partnerships with the Region of Waterloo Employment Services and the YMCA, Lisa has opened real and accessible pathways into healthcare for newcomers and career-changers — people who are looking for a fresh start in our region and who simply needed someone to open a door and believe in what they could become.
This is what one unified WRHN looks like in practice—inclusion with intention, and growth with heart—where team members can thrive and continue to deliver outstanding care.
“As a manager, I am not here to dictate. I see myself as an advocate — for the technicians, to share their story, to tell people about the incredible work that happens here.”
Thanks to leaders like Lisa, that future is not just a vision. It is already being built, one person at a time.
We are building one WRHN—one team, one values-driven culture, and one approach to care. By 2029, connected systems and shared records will ensure care is coordinated and timely.
Services will be shaped in partnership with patients and families and guided by strong quality standards, research, and innovation.
Through partnerships with primary care and Ontario Health Teams, care will become more flexible and proactive—helping people access compassionate, timely care closer to home. This approach will ensure the right care, in the right place, at the right time, whether at home, in the community, virtually, or in hospital.
Where We’ll Focus
Healthcare requires support the patient across their entire health journey—from diagnosis to healing. Our hospitals across Waterloo Wellington work together to bring care as close as possible to our patients and ensure that it is centred around the person, not the diagnosis.
Natalia is not only a patient, but she is also one of WRHN’s Nurse Practitioners. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she experienced our health system from a different perspective: as someone navigating uncertainty, vulnerability, and deeply personal decisions about her care. Natalia’s story reflects how we continue to advance our priority of Personalized Care, enabled by innovation and grounded in our commitment to being a Learning and Partnered Health System.
She received treatment at the WRHN Cancer Centre, where one moment stands out. A physician sat beside her and carefully mapped out her treatment plan, step by step. What initially felt overwhelming became understandable and manageable. In that moment, personalized care meant more than clinical expertise; it meant empathy, clarity, dignity, and time.
Natalia’s journey continued with breast reconstruction surgery at Cambridge Memorial Hospital. This next phase of care was not simply procedural, it was personal. For her, reconstruction was an important part of her healing, helping her feel whole again and giving her strength and confidence as she moved forward.
Her experience demonstrates the power of working as a connected network. Across WRHN, teams collaborated to wrap coordinated supports and services around her, clinical care, surgical expertise, and compassionate guidance, ensuring she received the right care, at the right time, in the right place. Innovation enabled seamless transitions. Partnership across sites and partners ensured continuity. And a learning mindset allowed teams to respond to her unique goals and preferences.
Natalia’s story reminds us that advancing personalized care means seeing the whole person, not just the diagnosis and designing care plans with patients, not just for them, learning from each patient journey to improve the next.
“I was overwhelmed. Even though you think you can process information, it’s very complicated. Dr. Califaretti one of the best oncologists I have ever met, despite her busyness, sat beside me and drew a road map from the day of diagnosis, through the treatment, all the way to the end. When I completed my treatment, we looked back at that map and said — look how much we achieved, and where we are now.”
— Natalia, Nurse Practitioner & Patient
By 2029, WRHN will be a fully integrated hospital network with a shared culture, united in operations, care, and purpose.
Built on the thoughtful integration of people, processes, and tools, WRHN will use innovation to drive continuous improvement and reimagine care. Strong data, digital systems, and modern facilities, including progress towards the new hospital, will support this foundation.
Where We’ll Focus
WRHN serves diverse communities that call Waterloo Region home. As a healthcare network, we work with our partners to ensure that care is there when it is needed most.
Reception House Waterloo called WRHN on behalf of a local family of seven who would be arriving to our community. The family of seven were refugees from Eritrea. Three young adult children would require hemodialysis immediately upon arrival in Canada.
Very little clinical information was available. It was shared that all three siblings had partial vision impairment, two had hearing impairments, and the family would likely have limited English proficiency. What we did know for certain was that access to timely renal care would be critical from the moment they landed.
This was a defining moment for WRHN’s commitment to Build Our Network for Better Health.
Rather than waiting for the family to arrive, our team mobilized early. Bringing together our teams across Admitting, Renal and Medicine, WRHN worked in close partnership with Reception House Waterloo, to create open forum for information-sharing, scenario planning, and coordinated decision-making. This proactive, collaboration with our community partners reflects the strong and stable foundation we are building as a regional system of care. It required innovative thinking, planning care in new ways, and bringing the services around the patients to break down silos around their needs.
On the day of arrival, necessary resources were placed on standby to ensure a smooth intake and support real-time coordination. The three siblings were welcomed, triaged individually, and assessed by Emergency and Renal teams. They were clinically stable and safely transitioned to outpatient hemodialysis and referred for further testing that identified more complex needs.
In response, the hemodialysis team scheduled all three siblings on the same shift, simplifying transportation, interpretation, communication, and continuity of care. This thoughtful operational decision reduced barriers, supported the family’s unique needs, and enhanced their overall care experience.
The family has successfully settled in Waterloo Region with the support of Reception House and community partners. This story is about more than coordination, it is about health equity in action and demonstrates how WRHN is meeting patients where they are, with the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
By partnering across programs and with community organizations, we can continue to create more opportunities for families like this so that everyone experiences seamless, patient-centred care.
Enablers
These enablers are the foundational building blocks that must be in place for WRHN to successfully deliver on its priorities.
Principles
Guiding principles ground how we think about care, permeate all our work, and help guide how care will be reimagined it for everyone.
These enablers are the foundational building blocks that must be in place for WRHN to successfully deliver on its priorities. They strengthen execution and ensure the organization can sustainably adapt and thrive over time.
Teams will be supported to reimagine care by exploring new ideas, testing practical approaches, and integrating emerging technologies. We will build capacity to assess and scale innovations that improve care delivery, strengthen partnerships, and prepare for future needs. Innovation and AI will be applied purposefully in priority areas—grounded in strong foundations and focused on tangible benefits for patients and teams, improving access, coordination, and network performance.
WRHN will achieve fiscal balance through improved efficiency, exploring alternative funding models, strategic partnerships, new revenue opportunities, and close collaboration with our Foundation.
Guiding principles ground how we think about care, permeate all our work, and help guide how care will be reimagined it for everyone. These principles ensure that every interaction reflects our values and guide how we work, collaborate, and grow together.
WRHN will continue to foster meaningful relationships with Indigenous communities grounded in respect for sovereignty, to cocreate better care with communities and ensure active inclusion in patient, leadership, and decision-making processes and bodies.
WRHN will build a health network that goes beyond our walls, accessible to everyone, rooted in partnership, and designed to evolve. We will be responsive and flexible, informed by evidence and experience and committed to continuous improvement. WRHN will learn and lead as we grow, ensuring care remains relevant, effective, and connected to the needs of the people we serve.
WRHN will continue to advance health equity through multilingual communication, cultural competency, community engagement, and flexible care options. We will integrate social determinants of health as we build our network and reimagine care, while strengthening environmental sustainability to reduce our ecological footprint and support a healthier planet.
WRHN will set clear targets every year to show how we are doing in reaching the goals in our strategic plan.
These targets will help us stay focused and accountable to the communities we serve. We will share regular updates on public website, so you can see the progress we are making.
A community dashboard is coming soon, so you can see exactly how we are delivering on our plan.
Our strategy is foundational, bold, dynamic and co-created with our teams and communities. Shaped by over 2,500 diverse voices who shared meaningful insights through team member surveys, in-person and virtual interviews and sessions, WRHN’s plan embodies true collaboration and a commitment to reimagined care, achieved together.
Our evolving strategy relies on our community’s involvement to reimagine the future of care at WRHN.
Our evolving strategy relies on our community’s involvement to reimagine the future of care at WRHN.
Success for WRHN is defined not only by the milestones we reach in three and ten years, but by our ability to remain responsive, resilient, and relevant to the evolving needs of our communities.
This strategic plan is designed to be a stable yet nimble plan, one that guides our decisions, measures our progress, and supports transformation within the organization and health system over time.
Patients and families will experience seamless, personalized care through a network that feels like a trusted partner, not an institution.
Every interaction will reflect compassion, safety, respect and a goal of achieving health equity. Teams will thrive in a workplace that champions wellness, growth, and leadership. The network will be optimized for both patients and team members. WRHN’s success will be measured not only by outcomes, but by the trust we earn, the barriers we overcome, and the future of care we reimagine together, one where outstanding care is seamless and personal.
WRHN will be fully realized as a seamless, sustainable hospital network, with one team offering one service. With the new hospital site operating, the Region will experience expanded services, increased capacity, and outstanding quality of care.
WRHN will have transformed into a future-ready health network that anticipates and meets the evolving needs of our communities. Patients will experience personalized and barrier-free health journeys, supported by advanced technology and empowered teams. WRHN will stand as a visionary leader, shaping the future of care.
Thank you to everyone who contributed insights and aspirations, your input shaped WRHN’s first Strategic Plan.
