St. Michael’s Hospital, BARLO MS Centre
Better collaboration, exchange of ideas and ultimately care.
Read the full project profile.Project Objective
St. Michael’s Hospital is a part of Unity Health, one of Canada’s largest Catholic healthcare networks. The BARLO MS Centre, which occupies the top two floors of the hospital’s new 17-story Peter Gilgan Patient Care Tower, is a 30,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility designed for MS clinical care, infusions, research, and education.
Designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects along side the St. Michael’s Redevelopment Team and with direct input from MS Patients, the goal of the BARLO MS Centre was to bring together the various MS disciplines departments located in separate wings and buildings to one space. Uniting the teams would enable better collaboration, education and the exchange of ideas between physicians, nurses, researchers, students, and patients. Furthermore, it would achieve St. Michael’s main objective of proving a fully comprehensive, one-stop-shop, wrap around care model for its MS patients.
In addition to having a dedicated healthcare team in one location, the spaces were designed with the specific needs of MS patients to provide an elevated level of care, accessibility, and customization.
COI for several years have been supporting a standards program for Unity Health, and this focused work validated the furniture budget, aesthetics, and specification requirements for the BARLO MS Centre project upfront.
Through live design, a dedicated furniture customization options person, and a streamlined process, COI addressed the workspace’s functional requirements of the various healthcare professionals coming from private office to open offices. COI managed a multi-vendor product strategy, installation team, and collaboration with St. Michael’s Redevelopment Team and its general contractor during the challenging environment of COVID 19.
The BARLO MS Centre is the largest clinic in Canada for Multiple Sclerosis that provides better patient outcomes with total care in one place and the coming together of multidisciplinary teams. COI continues to support the innovative facilities at Unity Health with their dedicated Healthcare team.