The donors: Benita Warmbold and Gerry Wood
The gift: $200,000
The cause: Women's College Hospital in Toronto
The reason: To fund health systems innovations
When Benita Warmbold joined the board of Toronto's Women's College Hospital a couple of years ago she became intrigued by the hospital's dedication to linking women's health care with innovation.
"What they are doing is tackling those complex challenging issues and really trying to impact the delivery of health care," said Ms. Warmbold, who is the chief financial officer at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. "They are finding cures for what's hurting health care."
Ms Warmbold and her husband, Gerry Wood, became so caught up with the idea that they donated $200,000 to fund a fellowship for health systems innovations at the hospital. The research will look into a variety of areas including helping seniors manage chronic conditions so they can stay at home and developing frameworks to allow health-care workers and patients to make better use of mobile technology.
"We liked the fact that the work that they would do would have an impact at the hospital, the community, the province and beyond," she added. "My husband and I are both accountants, so when it comes to budgeting and cost effectiveness and understanding the economics behind this, it really resonated with us."
Paul Waldie