This could mean two WELL Certified medical facilities in Niagara Falls

The new Niagara Falls Hospital is already being described as a state-of-the-art health-care facility that will also be an artificial intelligence center of excellence. Now the planned new Niagara Health hospital in Niagara Falls could become the very first health-care facility in Canada to achieve what’s known as WELL certification.

Niagara Health said on Monday that it’s already registered the hospital to serve south Niagara with the International WELL Building Institute to work towards becoming WELL v2 certified. This could make Niagara Falls Ontario the only city in Canada with two WELL Certified healthcare buildings… DCL Niagara Medical Arts Center began the process immediately after a conversation between WELL Building Institute, President Rachel Gutter and DCL Healthcare Properties CEO Frank Deluca.

I immediately saw that the WELL standard defined everything I envision in my DCL facilities.

The certification focuses on the design of buildings and measure and monitors their impact on the health and well-being of the occupants, in this case, the well-being of staff, physicians, volunteers, patients, families, caregivers.

The WELL Certification aligns itself with green and sustainable certifications like LEED. In DCL’s project, it will not apply for LEED certification despite its design and engineer, done all in house, possibly achieving GOLD. For DCL it has chosen to be BREEAM certified which it has already completed preliminary design and achieved the highest score of any healthcare building in Canada. In fact, DCL has already been awarded a Design Excellence award by Sustainable buildings Canada.

Niagara Health hospital construction of the hospital, at the corner of Montrose Road and Lyon’s Creek Road, could begin as soon as late 2022, with possible completion in 2026.

DCL recently submitted its project for site plan approval and has met all the criteria. It plans to break ground fall of 2020.

Niagara Falls is certainly on the map when it comes to healthcare of the future.