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The Royal's Annual Report 2022-23
Champions of Hope
As one of Canada’s foremost mental health care, teaching, and research hospitals, our mission is to expand access, hope and new possibilities for people with mental health and substance use health needs through the convergence of client and family-oriented care, science, education, and lived expertise.
Hope is a foundational element in mental health care. Hope motivates us to get help and engage in treatment. Hope helps us cope with challenges, set goals, and work towards recovery. Hope inspires us to overcome difficulties and achieve positive outcomes.
For this year’s annual report we are shining a spotlight on some of our champions of hope. They are frontline health care workers, researchers, and the support staff who keep things running. They are clients, families, and volunteers who contribute their time and personal expertise to improve mental health care. They are community members and organizations whose generous support helps to drive innovation. Our champions of hope all have something in common – they make a very real difference in the lives of others.
From our client and family councils
CAC: Engaging clients across the organization
Four years ago, one of our Client Advisory Council (CAC) members expressed interest in increasing peer support for clients and families at The Royal. A committee was formed that soon expanded to involve the Family Advisory Council. Since then, over 4,000 volunteer hours were spent on creating a vision of care and navigation support at The Royal.
An industry expert was hired by the organization to provide a model for The Royal and train the initial peer supporters. Two of our committee members were hired as a peer support supervisor and a project manager. There was great interest from the Forensic Program in peer support and they were chosen as the pilot for peer support at The Royal.
There was great interest in the posting for client and family peer supporters in both Ottawa and Brockville and we ended up with outstanding hires. There were some important questions to answer along the way about the integration of peer support into program and services, but through ongoing communication, these staff members and the value they bring to the table has been embraced. The feedback from both clients and families using these supports has been extremely positive.
The Client and Family Resource Hub became a reality this past year with support from senior management and our generous donor Johannes Ziebarth of Ziebarth Electrical Contractors Ltd.
Research at The Royal has embraced the inclusion of clients and families in all they do – from being part of research studies and hiring committees, to having a client as a voting member of the Integrated Research Committee.
We are a mighty dozen at the present time, involved in over 50 committees and projects at The Royal. Our boldness through difficult periods of change has been met with doors opening wider and more seats at the table with both senior management and the board. As always, our storytelling is the favourite part of many events from corporate welcomes to conferences.
We look forward to the coming years with a positive attitude of great things to come at The Royal and our part in it.
Glenda O’Hara
Chair, Client Advisory Council
Randy Walsh
Vice-chair, Client Advisory Council
FAC: Champions of hope
The focus of the Family Advisory Council (FAC) over this past year was the development of an archive of documents from our inception in 2005/06 to present times. These many achievements were rolled into an orientation presentation for new FAC members to inspire the art of the possible, generate hope, and demonstrate the influence of the family voice in effecting organization change to new recruits and long-time members alike.
A pinnacle FAC achievement was the completion of skills-building modules on the following topics:
- Confidentiality and consent
- Communication skills to improve family engagement
- Grieving, mental health and the family experience
These online modules, designed for staff working with families, were the result of the advocacy of FAC Chair, Cynthia Clark, at the client and family centred care committee. This initiative, piloted in 2018 and actualized in 2022, is one of many of Cynthia’s triumphs.
In building our archive of information and working with Cynthia, it became clear that this founding FAC member had worked tirelessly in pioneering numerous initiatives over the years. It was in light of countless hours of volunteer work that the FAC – with support from client and family relations – decided to dedicate a bursary in Cynthia’s name. The bursary will provide recognition and hope to family advisors who contribute time and energy in augmenting the family voice at The Royal. It will enable them to attend mental health training and/or conferences beyond their advisory work.
2022-2023 also saw an uptake in demand for family advisors and the FAC rose to the challenge. We implemented an engagement strategy that successfully recruited, interviewed, oriented and welcomed eight new members to the FAC. Please consider joining us in what is sure to be another eventful year!
Juliet Haynes
Family engagement and experience coordinator
- Confidentiality and consent
Bringing hope, access, and new possibilities
Early-career researcher showcase
Research plays an integral role in what we do here at The Royal. Through exploring and pushing the boundaries of our knowledge in a way that is integrated with care and driven by the needs and experiences of our clients, we can create better futures for people living with mental illness. One of the ways we drive innovation is to support early-career researchers and help them develop new approaches and ideas that will make a big impact. Read on for a few of our latest research-related updates from our early-career researchers.
Dr. Avery Berman
Dr. Avery Berman is an assistant professor in physics at Carleton University and a scientist at the IMHR. His lab develops MRI acquisition techniques and applies modelling to extract more physiologically meaningful information from the MRI signal. As a new professor, Dr. Berman is excited about recruiting three new grad students and postdocs over the past year. His trainees are pursuing projects to better image the health of small blood vessels at high spatial resolution and to make imaging of brain metabolism more accessible. The lab plans to translate these developments to image brain health in mental health and dementia.
Dr. Clifford Cassidy
Dr. Clifford Cassidy is a neuroimaging researcher who focuses on neuromodulatory brain systems, such as the dopamine system, that are the target of many psychiatric medications. His work is developing biomarkers of imbalance in these systems that may be relevant to schizophrenia, PTSD, Alzheimer’s disease and ADHD and that may ultimately help to better tailor treatments to individual clients. This past year, Dr. Cassidy and an industry partner, Terran Biosciences, generated a software program based on his image analysis algorithm that is currently under review by the FDA for clearance for clinical use.
Dr. Synthia Guimond
Dr. Synthia Guimond is a scientist dedicated to developing evidence-based treatments to address cognitive dysfunctions in psychiatric disorders. Her ultimate goal is to enhance the social and professional lives of our clients. Her research leverages digital technology to deliver remote cognitive assessments and interventions, using tools such as smartphones and virtual reality. Additionally, Dr. Guimond aims to investigate the brain mechanisms underpinning cognitive dysfunctions in psychiatric disorders using multimodal neuroimaging techniques. Over the past year, she has pioneered the development of a Cognitive Health Research Clinic at The Royal. This clinic is designed to provide treatment for cognitive difficulties experienced by individuals who are living with various psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Natalia Jaworska
Dr. Natalia Jaworska studies the brain in the context of mental illness. She does this by looking at brain electrical activity (studying "brain waves" or EEG) as well as brain imaging. She combines these approaches to understand the brain in the most nuanced way possible. Most of her research has focused on understanding the brain in depression and the effects of various types of interventions as well as mood and cognition. In the past year, she has studied the impacts of exercise in depressed youth and the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on people with schizophrenia who hear voices. Finally, in individuals who have no mental illness, she studies brain features that might be the same or different in males and females, and tries to relate these to sex hormones. Such data are important since this could inform treatment for mental illness that is more common in one gender.
Dr. Robyn McQuaid
At The Royal, neuroscientist Dr. Robyn McQuaid examines the impacts of stressors and early-life trauma experiences on the development of mental health disorders such as depression. One aspect of this work measures immune system markers in the blood, which are elevated after stressful experiences and in depression. Interestingly, this past year Dr. McQuaid found that the immune system might be disrupted among individuals who have specific symptoms/features of depression. This could have future implications for tailoring treatments for depression to inform who might benefit from adding anti-inflammatory medications to ongoing treatments.
Dr. Andrew Nicholson
Dr. Andrew Nicholson is an assistant professor within the school of psychology at the University of Ottawa and is the director of clinical research at the Atlas Institute. As a scientist at the IMHR, Dr. Nicholson’s research program focuses on characterizing brain pathways associated with trauma-related disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Additionally, his research aims to better understand the neurobiological basis of mental health burdens that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. In 2023, Dr. Nicholson published a new clinical trial which used brain training fMRI neurofeedback as a tool to help people with PTSD learn to non-invasively self-regulate patterns of brain activity associated with their symptoms. Notably, Dr. Nicholson’s team recently received a CIHR project grant to extend this work. For more information, please see drandrewnicholson.com.
Dr. Jennifer Phillips
Dr. Jennifer Phillips combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with blood-based biomarkers to improve our understanding of biological risk for suicide to inform better treatment and prevention strategies. Thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts are common in patients with severe depression, yet little is known about their biological underpinnings and few treatments are available. This past year, Dr. Phillips’ research showed that white matter tracts in the brain involved in regulating emotions and making decisions differ in patients with depression who have had a previous suicide attempt compared to those who have had suicidal thoughts yet have not acted on them. Ongoing work examines these findings alongside clinical and psychosocial data. Dr. Phillips is the interim scientific director of the IMHR and led the creation of the BMO Innovative Clinic for Depression.
Dr. Rébecca Robillard
Dr. Rébecca Robillard directs clinical sleep research at the IMHR and is the co-chair of the Canadian Sleep Research Consortium. Her research focuses on the interactions between mental illness, the sleeping brain, and the sleeping heart. Through a translational research framework, Dr. Robillard is working in close collaboration with the Sleep Disorders Clinic, the Operational Stress Injury Clinic, and the Youth Program to bridge the gap between research and care. Dr. Robillard’s work also seeks to optimize sleep and chronobiological interventions targeting mental disorders with particular attention to major depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. By supplementing standard clinical care with extended assessment and treatment options, her team hopes to improve quality of life, and potentially accelerate recovery in people with mental health disorders and sleep problems.
Dr. Reggie Taylor
Dr. Reggie Taylor is a physicist and scientist with the Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR) who utilizes novel magnetic resonance imaging techniques to study the brain. As technology improves, it becomes possible to look at the brain in new and exciting ways, far beyond what is routinely available on MRI systems. Using such leading-edge imaging techniques, he is studying excitatory neurotransmission in schizophrenia, and waste clearance pathways in the brains of people with dementia.
Dr. Sara Tremblay
At The Royal, scientist Dr. Sara Tremblay uses repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to stimulate specific brain circuits known to be dysfunctional in people with major depression. This non-drug therapy is safe, non-invasive, has few side effects. What’s even more exciting is rTMS has shown positive outcomes for people who have difficult-to-treat depression. This past year, Dr. Tremblay’s team has launched a new clinical trial in which they combine state-of-the-art brain imaging with rTMS in order to improve and better predict treatment outcomes.
Dr. Lauri Tuominen
Dr. Lauri Tuominen is a neuroscientist at the IMHR. Dr. Tuominen’s research focuses on understanding schizophrenia using multimodal imaging methods, including positron emission tomography (PET) and functional MRI, and exploring how changes in dopamine and acetylcholine neurotransmitter systems underlie learning and cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. His research interests also include the use of PET imaging to investigate the impact of transcranial magnetic stimulation on the brain.
For information about areas of research at The Royal, go to theroyal.ca.
Our mission
Delivering excellence in specialized mental health care, advocacy, research, and education.
Our vision
Mental health care transformed through partnerships, innovation, and discovery.
Our values
We are guided by innovation and a passionate commitment to collaboration, honesty, integrity and respect.
Our strategic priorities
- Innovate and shape care to client and family needs
- Advance specialized care
- Connect care and services for a more accessible system
- Integrate research, education, practice, and lived expertise to improve client and family-oriented outcomes and experiences
- Advocate and partner for systemic equity
By the numbers
$11,703,479
funds raised
$3,622,571
funds raised for research
79.7 %
increase in funds raised compared to last year
1587
full and part-time employees
$7.3M
Research grants received
45.97
years worked by our longest-serving employee
13,880
number of job applications received
78
researchers, 18 of whom are scientists
193,075
outpatient visits
245
publications
1006
unique inpatients admitted
10,416 hours
worked by 172 registered volunteers
See how innovation drives hope
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Team endeavours to bring “miraculous” treatment for PTSD to Canada
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) robbed Cory Taylor of his peace of mind for many years, but a simple treatment he received in connection with a research case study was enough to help restore his quality of life.
Ozerdinc Grimes Family Regional Psychosis Clinic opens its doors
Thanks to a $2.5M donation from the Ozerdinc Grimes family, The Royal launched a clinic to help people living with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Over the next three years the clinic has the potential to help 1,000 additional people in our community.
Using AI to bring personalized treatments to mental health care
Examining the brain using AI takes clinicians beyond understanding what changes are happening in the brain when someone experiences mental illness to understanding why and how those changes are taking place.
Introducing the new BMO Innovative Clinic for Depression
More than two million people in Canada experience major depression every year. One third of these individuals experience treatment-resistant depression, meaning their symptoms do not improve with conventional medications.
On May 30, BMO announced a $2 million donation to go towards the BMO Innovative Clinic for Depression. The clinic will offer increased treatment access, develop additional research opportunities, and link to other available treatments and services at The Royal.
One of these treatments includes esketamine, which experts hail as one of the biggest breakthroughs in the field of depression in the past half century.
“The BMO Innovative Clinic for Depression will give hope to those with difficult-to-treat depression,” says Dr. Jennifer Phillips, interim scientific director of the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR) at The Royal.
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