Health Ecosphere collaboration leads to innovative digital health tech solutions to urgent healthcare challenges

TORONTO, March 27, 2019 – Health Ecosphere, an innovative project established to support the development of digital health technologies in Canada, has led to the commercialization of over 75 new products, forged close to 100 new partnerships, and created a new business model for moving health-tech prototypes to market.

The lead partners of Health Ecosphere—York University, Southlake Regional Health Centre and the University Health Network—celebrated the successes of the three-year project today, along with the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).

The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for FedDev Ontario, first announced $15 million in federal funding for the project in 2016. This investment was designed to bring universities, healthcare providers, the business community and government together to develop and commercialize technologies that could be used to improve the health of Canadians and position Canada as a global centre for innovation. Matching funding from private, academic and not-for-profit partners brought total investments to $35 million.

In the past three years, the project has created and maintained more than 150 well-paid positions and commercialized or deployed 77 products and services in 62 new markets.

The new products and services developed through Health Ecosphere are offering solutions to urgent healthcare issues. Technologies developed include healthcare apps, medical devices and big data platforms. They are designed to connect and coordinate healthcare, address fiscal impacts of the proliferation of chronic disease, help individuals change their behaviours, and leverage big data to develop and commercialize solutions.

Examples of the products and services developed through Health Ecosphere include:

• BrDI, an evidence-based tablet shown to have strong potential as a brain health assessment tool, tracks recovery from head injury as well as functional problems related to dementia risk. York University reached an exclusive licence deal that will see the technology commercialized into a human assessment platform sold by a Canadian company. It is already in use for a large study to gather data from adults in the Netherlands.
• Southlake Regional Health Centre, in collaboration with the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, validated a real-time predictive analytic tool called Artemis, which helps clinicians in diagnosing premature babies in Southlake’s neonatal intensive care unit. For these tiny patients, hours could be the difference between life and death, so the time Artemis saves could make all the difference.

• The Breathe Respiratory Platform has been developed and deployed by the University Health Network (UHN) to transform current methods for the self-management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and asthma, from a generic paper-based approach to an approach that is dynamic and personalized. It is enabling patients in acute care and primary care clinics across Ontario to manage exacerbations in breathing more effectively.

Health Ecosphere has also created a cluster of academic, healthcare and industry partners in southern Ontario and has trained 51 graduate and doctoral students at York University, the University of Toronto and the affiliated UHN. These students, in health and applied science, biomedical engineering and health informatics, are addressing the digital health sector’s need for a highly educated workforce and scientific expertise. The Health Coach Training Modules at York University, created through Health Ecosphere, have contributed to the skills development of 90 healthcare professionals, including 25 from First Nations communities and 15 rural guidance counsellors.

Health Ecosphere ventures have created $12 million in revenues, and the products and services continue to spread to markets in Canada, North America, Europe and beyond.

More information about Health Ecosphere projects is available here.

QUOTES:
“Building on a proud tradition of innovation in health products and service delivery, Canada is becoming a global leader in health and biosciences advances through collaborations such as this one, between health companies, organizations and academic partners. Our government, through FedDev Ontario, is pleased to have provided $15 million in support for this cutting-edge project.”
–The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for FedDev Ontario

“The Health Ecosphere program reflects the strength of York’s collaboration with our partners in the healthcare field, finding new ways to apply research to improve the lives of Canadians and to prepare students for exciting careers in digital health.”
– Rhonda Lenton, President and Vice-Chancellor, York University

“At Southlake we are dedicated to owning our role in transforming the health system, but we also know that our best opportunities to improve the system are in partnerships, like the ones we have formed through the Health Ecosphere. To make the system more sustainable, and to truly wrap care around patients, we need to forge partnerships that enable new models of care and develop new technologies that improve access to care and make the system more sustainable.”
– Arden Krystal, President and CEO, Southlake Regional Health Centre

“The Health Ecosphere and FedDev funding has been transformative for UHN and its partners.  It has lifted research concepts and prototypes to new products and services that are market-ready and impactful to the health system. Just as important, we have developed and retained great, talented people that will build on current success.”
– Dr. Joseph Cafazzo, Executive Director, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, University Health Network

York University champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. York U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, York is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni.
York U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Southlake Regional Health Centre is a full-service hospital with a regional, clinically advanced focus. As a regionally designated site, Southlake is responsible for developing and providing advanced levels of care to the more than one million people who reside in York Region, Simcoe County, and as far north as Muskoka. Advanced, specialty services include: arthritis care, cancer care, cardiac care, cataract surgery, child and adolescent eating disorders, mental health services for children, paediatrics and perinatal care, and thoracic surgery. Southlake is proud to have a team of over 3,000 employees, 580 physicians, and more than 900 volunteers. Combined with our commitment to provide the best possible care to patients, our goal is to make Southlake synonymous with healthcare excellence.

University Health Network includes Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and the Michener Institute for Education at UHN. The scope of research and complexity of cases at University Health Network has made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. It has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in cardiology, transplantation, neurosciences, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine. University Health Network is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. 

Media Contacts:
Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University, 416-455-4710, wallsj@yorku.ca

Matthew Haggerty, Corporate Communications, Southlake Regional Health Centre, 289-380-0576, mhaggerty@southlakeregional.org