The Ottawa Hospital

Employer of the Year

With more than 1,100 beds and a workforce composed of about 16,000 people, The Ottawa Hospital is a hive of activity at any hour of the day. Add the multi-campus teaching hospital’s complement of about 5,000 learners, and the size and complexity of an institution with a $1.2 billion annual budget becomes obvious.

“I am originally from Manitoba, and came to Ottawa about three years ago after a number of years in Toronto,” says Dr. Jerry Maniate, Vice President of Education for The Ottawa Hospital (TOH), which is affiliated with the University of Ottawa. “To put it in perspective, this institution would have qualified as the Manitoba’s third largest city.”

Dr. Maniate oversees and supports the massive influx of health sciences students to the TOH from its educational partners, including Algonquin College. An institution of this size has a constant need for new staff as existing employees move on, move up in the organization or retire. The hospital hires approximately 600 nurses each year and a total number of over 2,100 new employees are onboarded annually, for instance, and that number could grow as the local population increases and as needs evolve in reflection to the demographic shift that is occurring towards a larger senior population requiring more care and more complex treatment.

New hires join a hospital that in 2020 earned the National Capital Region’s Top Employers Award for the third consecutive year.
“We always need employees who are looking toward being within and contributing to a positive work experience,” Dr. Maniate says. “People who can see themselves working here surrounded by great colleagues and doing great work on behalf of their community.”

Over the years, a significant percentage of staff have received their education at Algonquin College. TOH and the College have a history of cooperation and collaboration, including the development of research and front line staff. The hospital also draws on students from faculties other than Health Sciences to fill openings for workers to support its administrative, nutritional services and infrastructure needs.

“Most people think of health professionals when they think of hospital staff, and that is to be expected,” Dr. Maniate says. “But there are so many other areas and opportunities that are critical here including our support services that are ensuring our health professionals are prepared and enabled to carry out their roles. Health care is always exciting because it never stops changing, and we will be looking to see how we can integrate some non-traditional disciplines from Algonquin College into the health care system so we can take a fresh look at our challenges and find innovative solutions.”

Most recently, in 2018, fresh cooperation on existing research initiatives involving graduates and co-op students resulted in the opening of The Ottawa Hospital mHealth Lab, led by Dr. Kumanan Wilson. Located in the College’s Applied Research and Innovation facilities, its focus on innovative uses of mobile and digital technologies to improve health continues alongside other partnerships involving biotherapeutics manufacturing and multimedia design.

Dr. Maniate characterizes the Algonquin College health sciences students who come to learn and work with his team at TOH as enthusiastic, curious and engaged. “A lot of them walk in the door and right away try to live the vision of The Ottawa Hospital,” he says. “Even as learners, they impress me because are trying to deliver health care to our patients as if they were their loved ones. It invigorates me to see that the next generation has this kind of energy to come to TOH every day to learn and to work and devote themselves to our patients and our community.”

Carrying on its responsibilities as a teaching institution during the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging, Dr. Maniate notes, but the collective focus on learners is being maintained without interruption. It has required creative thinking and innovation in order to do some tasks differently – “to ensure learners are meeting their educational competencies while also ensuring both learner and patient safety in the context of the hospital’s vision of treating each patient as if they were a loved one.”

But he adds his goal and that of his colleagues remains unchanged: to work with the TOH’s educational partners to ensure eastern Ontario has the best-trained health care providers.

“We want this region and this hospital to be a magnet that attracts up-and-coming students who want to learn about health care. We want their enthusiasm and ideas: having so many young people come here from so many educational institutions, they are constantly learning from one another. Even as teachers, we are also learning from them as we all go about the work of devoting ourselves totally to our patients.

“There are so many questions about the future of health care,” Maniate says. “But we know our students will be part of the team that will help us face the problems head-on and be part of the solution.”