SickKids honours outstanding staff with 2025 President’s Award

The Critical Care Response Team (CCRT) has transformed how SickKids responds when a child’s condition changes. This team is available 24/7 across the hospital including inpatient units, clinics and the Emergency Department, to provide rapid assessment, stabilization and guidance in high-stakes moments. This group of expert critical care nurses responds to more than 4,500 bedside visits and over 1,000 CCRT activations each year. In addition to consultating on deteriorating patients, the team also responds to all Code Blue activations and leads resuscitation efforts.

Their role goes far beyond crisis response: CCRT members coach staff in real time, debrief after events, and offer just-in-time teaching that builds confidence and clinical judgement, particularly for newer nurses and trainees. Their work supports early recognition of deteriorating patients and escalation of care in critical moments.

For families, the team’s calm presence can be a lifeline. One parent whose child has relied on CCRT support over nine years describes the team as a source of “security” who not only anticipate their child’s unique patterns of distress but also reduce the trauma of repeated emergencies by guiding staff and staying with the family through each event. CCRT’s combination of expertise, coaching and compassion has become integral to safe paediatric care at SickKids.

The Music Therapy team brings a different type of care to SickKids: one rooted in presence, creativity and emotional connection. At bedsides across the hospital, music therapists support children through procedures, long admissions and some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, including end of life. Using live music, songwriting and improvisation, they create safe spaces for children to express fear, joy and grief when words are not enough.

Families often describe music therapy as one of the most meaningful parts of their SickKids experience. One parent recalls a therapist playing guitar throughout their child’s Celebration of Life, where the music helped to give a voice to the emotions they were feeling in the moment. Another family credits a song for helping them “stay afloat” during an unimaginably difficult time.

The team’s impact reaches beyond the clinical setting. Music therapists volunteer their time at memorial services and funerals, and contribute their talents at hospital-wide events, including SickKids’ 150th birthday celebrations and Remembrance Day ceremonies. By integrating the arts into care, they support staff wellness, strengthen interprofessional collaboration and embody a model of compassionate, family-centred care that honours the whole child.

Bringing together expertise from Nursing Practice, Clinical Operations, Human Resources, Learning Institute and the Data & Analytics Hub, the Nursing Optimization Strategy Leads launched a bold, multi-year plan to strengthen and advance the nursing workforce. Recognizing that the evolving needs of the profession cannot be solved in silos, they co-designed a unified approach that spans recruitment, retention, practice environment modernization and long-term workforce planning.

Key initiatives include the “Our Kind of Nursing” recruitment campaign, which celebrates inclusivity and belonging while attracting a more diverse pool of candidates. The expansion of the Clinical Extern Program, as well as the launch of new Critical Care New Graduate Nurse Residency Program and Registered Nurse (RN) Clinical Advancement Fellowship programs, opened pathways into specialized practice through intensive mentorship and hands-on learning. A new scholarship for Black and Indigenous nursing students completing clinical placements at SickKids is helping to build a more representative workforce for the future.

Listening closely to front-line nurses, the team also introduced innovative models such as the Seasonal Staffing and Weekend Worker programs to support scheduling flexibility, career growth, and work–life balance.

The impact is clear - turnover has decreased by 36 per cent from its peak. The team has modernized the practice environment by optimizing technology and reducing administrative tasks, freeing up more time for direct patient care. Together, these leaders have strengthened SickKids’ position as a destination employer for nurses and established a model for workforce innovation.

With surgical wait lists placing pressure on operating rooms across Ontario, the Ophthalmology Expanded Sedation Team saw an opportunity to do things differently. Building on a long-standing in-clinic sedation pathway, the team partnered with Anesthesia and Perioperative Services to introduce a new model supported by dedicated anesthesia assistants, allowing more procedures to be safely managed through in-clinic sedation.

Since launching in 2024, the Expanded Sedation program has successfully supported 117 cases with a 99 per cent success rate, freeing up more than 29 days of operating room time for cases with greater medical or surgical complexity. Children re-routed to the program had spent an average of 122 days on the surgical wait list, with some waiting more than two years. The new pathway has accommodated patients from two to eighteen years old, with a broad range of weights and ASA classifications, while achieving 96 per cent caregiver satisfaction.

The team’s collaborative, data-driven approach offers a proof of concept for how hospital-based ambulatory portfolios can expand access to essential procedural care in a cost-efficient, patient-centred way. Developed and implemented in under two months using existing spaces and resources, the Expanded Sedation program exemplifies the nimble, interprofessional innovation that will be crucial as SickKids plans for its future campus and meets growing demand for ophthalmology care.

Over the past year, the Pension Strategy Team took on the complex work of charting a new path forward, leading the analysis and engagement required to secure approvals for moving forward with the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) for future service. 

While carrying full operational responsibilities, the team led intensive analytical discussions with actuaries, regulators, unions and external advisors, often working evenings and weekends to meet aggressive timelines for Executive and Board decision-making. They developed a set of guiding principles and an options analysis framework rooted in SickKids’ values, ensuring any recommended direction would improve staff pension value without disadvantaging specific groups. 

To understand the impact of complex choices on different employees, the team created “personas” representing staff at varying ages, salary levels and years of service. This work helped surface diverse perspectives and risks and shaped a recommendation that has been broadly accepted. The decision positions SickKids on a level playing field with other hospitals, strengthens our ability to recruit and retain talent, and demonstrates a deep commitment to staff financial well-being over the long term.