Officials with the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital have been touring communities in its catchment area to spread the word that it is in the first phase of a redevelopment project.
The ultimate goal is to get funding to redevelop the hospital at its current location or on a new site.
The hospital is consistently over capacity and demand for services is increasing rapidly partly due to a growing and aging population, say officials.
They say they will be working out of the current facility for the next 5 to 7 years.
It begs the question, should we be building facilities for the near future or the not-so-distant future? The margin may be quite narrow.
It is widely acknowledged that we are entering a new industrial revolution. The last three – steam power, electricity and IT – have changed the way we live and work, improving quality of life.
When examining what could constitute this so-called fourth industrial revolution it drives home the point that some of it is already a reality. Advanced robotics and 3D printing are already here. We walk around every day with handheld computing devices and Google’s driverless cars are already being road tested in three US states.
The stuff of science fiction, this wave will see the integration of artificial intelligence.
As with the former industrial revolutions, we will see drastic changes in the workforce, including the way goods are manufactured. It doesn’t mean an overall loss of jobs just a change in the way we work.
It is predicted that health care will be one of the fields impacted by this revolution.
We are already hearing about more doctors seeing patients online and doing procedures remotely.
Although the province has been focusing on improvements to large health care centres, it is prudent to look at how technology will change our health care system. Public money may be better spent on fostering innovation and facilitating remote health care in smaller centres.
What do the hospitals of the future look like? Will improvements in preventative health care and aging make for fewer visits to the hospital? That is the overall goal of health care providers, is it not?
Imagine, the Google health app on your iPhone surpassing its current capabilities to measure levels, analyse blood and do a body scan for tumours. With the introduction of AI, we will see changes to our health care system. How it will all play out, obviously, we do not yet know but some of us are more likely to trust our lives to technology in health care before trying out a driverless car that navigates using Google maps, which we all know will put us in the bottom of a gulley on 6/7 Sideroad. That’s when we will hope the ER is open at the new G&M Hospital.