SHA Innovation Awards

The Innovation Excellence Award recognizes a project or initiative that demonstrates exceptional performance across every dimension of innovation. This award honours teams whose work exemplifies visionary thinking, meaningful collaboration, creative problem-solving, and measurable impact on health-care delivery

2026 recipient: Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Forensic Program Expansion - Saskatoon, Regina, and Prince Albert

• Initiative that established a standardized, trauma-informed, violence-responsive consultation model that supports early identification, medical risk mitigation, documentation, comprehensive holistic care planning and safety for patients who are experiencing sexual and gender-based violence.

Hand-in-Hand Innovation celebrates the power of collaboration, highlighting initiatives that engage diverse groups to work toward a common goal for collective benefit. This award values projects that drive widespread, lasting impact by uniting individual efforts into a stronger whole, fostering inclusivity, and building a caring culture within the organization. Strong collaboration and shared ownership also lay the foundation for sustainable, resilient innovation. With an emphasis on breaking down silos and engaging various perspectives, Hand-in-Hand innovations contribute to systems-level change and demonstrate the potential of teamwork to create meaningful, lasting improvements.

2026 recipient: Ready, Set, Eat!

• SHA’s first room service meal delivery model that allows patients and their family members the ability to order meals from their mobile device on demand. 

This award recognizes projects that have achieved significant, measurable improvements in health-care delivery, demonstrating the potential for widespread and deep impact. Recipients in this category have developed solutions that scale effectively across different healthcare settings, with measurable outcomes that drive quality, efficiency, and positive patient impact. These projects exemplify sustainable change, contributing to a resilient healthcare system and setting a strong example of replicable and value-driven innovation. This award celebrates initiatives that showcase clear return on investment and system-level improvement.

2026 recipient: Picture Based Communication

• Multilingual image-based communication system that improves communication between health-care providers and non-verbal patients

This award celebrates teams that embrace a hands-on, "roll up your sleeves" approach to innovation, turning constraints into catalysts for creative and responsive healthcare practices. Working with what they have, these teams use inventive approaches to address local challenges and enhance patient care. Driven by curiosity and grit, they demonstrate practical, high-impact solutions, often with limited resources. This award honors the power of resourcefulness, determination, and the commitment to "lead from where you are," laying the groundwork for others to follow.

2026 recipient: Collaborative Practice within Psychiatry in Southeast 8

• Collaborative Practice Agreement between SHA Mental Health and Addictions and community pharmacists in Weyburn to support psychiatry patients access to care in their home community

Emerging Innovation is future-focused, characterized by early adoption and creativity, and often relies on broader ecosystem developments before its full potential can be realized. Projects that embody emerging innovation demonstrate a deep understanding of the problem and propose original, creative solutions that break from convention. While immediate impact and benefits may be narrower in scope, and replicability and scalability might be limited, these innovations have significant potential for long-term influence as their environments evolve. Due to the pioneering nature of this category, collaboration may initially be limited, as early innovators often work in isolation until a community of practice develops around them. This category values vision, ingenuity, and the courage to explore uncharted territory in healthcare.

2026 recipient: Virtual Access to Addiction Medicine (VAAM) Program

• Saskatchewan’s first virtual multidisciplinary service that improves timely and equitable patient access to addiction medicine

This matrix is designed to help identify and highlight exemplary leadership behaviors within the innovation projects submitted for award consideration. Using the LEADS framework as a foundation, this matrix links each of the five LEADS domains to specific nomination questions and evaluation indicators, directing focus to areas where leadership qualities are most likely to be evidenced. The intent is not to score projects using this matrix, but rather to surface outstanding examples of collaborative leadership across all submissions. The evaluation indicators listed should help identify high-potential stories of leadership in action that will contribute to our organization’s ongoing commitment to “leading from where you are.” These examples can then be documented and shared through internal channels to foster a culture of inclusive, systems-oriented leadership across our organization.

2026 recipient: Visual Management and Automated Notification of Animal Exposure Investigations

• An interactive visual management dashboard that supports animal exposure investigations and improves patient outcomes

This award honors teams who have shown exceptional commitment to improving patient care, experience, and outcomes, as selected by Patient and Family Partners. Recognizing projects that are deeply patient-centered and especially relevant to vulnerable or underserved groups, this award values culturally safe, empathetic, and co-created solutions. These projects are driven by collaboration with patients, families, and communities, often addressing unique needs with respect, compassion, and alignment with organizational values. Recipients in this category represent solutions that are deeply relevant, meaningful, and impactful for the communities they serve, exemplifying a commitment to healthcare that prioritizes human connection and dignity.

2026 recipient: Empowering and Educating Front-Line Clinicians to Prescribe HIV Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) 

• New care model that trains emergency clinicians to independently assess HIV risk and prescribe PEP reducing the reliance on specialist consultation and improve access to care for patients

Honorable mention: Okawimaw Kanosimowin Mother’s Bundle

• This culturally grounded, community-led initiative supports Indigenous mothers by integrating traditional knowledge, peer support, and holistic care into maternal services. Through programs like Mama Pod and the Mother’s Bundle, it improves maternal experiences, strengthens cultural connection, and addresses systemic inequities. Widely recognized and scalable, it enhances trust, health outcomes, and culturally safe care while advancing Truth and Reconciliation.