New chair allows TRI program medical Director and KITE senior scientist to seek solutions that improve transitions in care for youth with childhood-onset disabilities
Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (TRI) Program Medical Director Dr. Mark Bayley has been appointed the inaugural Coriat Family Chair in Rehabilitation Service Innovation at UHN.
The new chair is part of a generous gift of $5-million to TRI from David and Lynn Coriat. The Coriat family has a long history of helping to break down systemic barriers and increase opportunities for youth with childhood-onset disabilities.
“I’m extremely grateful to the Coriat family for supporting our initiative to advance the field of transitional and rehabilitative care with their donation,” said Dr. Bayley, who is also a senior scientist at the KITE Research Institute at UHN.
In taking on this important additional role, Dr. Bayley says he will strive to improve transitions in care for youth with childhood-onset disabilities across all sectors and provide long-term support for patients with all types of neurological disabilities.
“The funding from this position will support research examining the gaps in the healthcare system and the development of tools clinicians can use in their day-to-day practice,” said Dr. Bayley, whose term commenced on Sept. 1 and runs for a duration of five years.
For more than a decade, the Coriat family has played an indispensable role in the mission to tear down systemic barriers and increase opportunities for youth with childhood-onset disabilities. Through the Coriat Youth Transitions and Development Centre at TRI, KITE has become a leader in youth transitions care and research in Canada.The centre brings together medical management, personal development opportunities, vocational training and groundbreaking research to help youth with childhood-onset disabilities lead independent and fulfilled lives.
Dr. Bayley will work collaboratively with fellow KITE scientist and Youth Transitions Researcher Dr. Sarah Munce to evaluate peer navigation and interventions designed to optimize physical and mental health. He will also continue to develop and advance TRI’s ground-breaking telerehab program by incorporating artificial intelligence into the platform.
Funding from the Coriat Family Chair will also be used to conduct research to identify novel interventions and technologies that have the potential to improve the brain’s ability to recovery from illness and injury; accelerate the translation of research into practice; and cultivate the next generation of rehabilitation researchers.
“It can take as long as 17 years for new research to be put into practice and the average clinician would have to read 25 papers per day to keep up new evidence. We have to find ways to shorten the pipeline from research to practice,” said Dr. Bayley.
“With a rapidly growing aging population the need for rehabilitation has never been higher.”