St. Paul’s Hospital opens new surgical unit

Now, each room for patients recovering from urology, ear, nose, throat or plastic surgery, has a private bathroom, lots of space, a patient safety lift and a white board .

“(The white boards are) a simple item that we’ve put on the wall, but they’re used for communication between our patients, our families, as well as our physicians and staff,” said Joan Gegner, the unit’s manager of nursing.

The Rawlco Radio surgical unit on the fourth floor of the hospital is also using new technology to help nurses and patients communicate. Each nurse has a device called a Vocera that works like a mini-cellphone or pager.

“That allows us to talk between staff-to-staff or directly to the patients that are actually in the rooms. We don’t have to run up and down the hallway, we can actually save steps,” said Gegner.

St. Paul’s is the first hospital in the Saskatoon Health Region to use the Voceras, but the technology could also be used in the future Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan.

“We’ve got representatives from the children’s hospital planning team coming next week to spend time on the unit to see how that influences our planning for that facility,” said Bartsch.

In order to accommodate this new unit and the extra surgeries that can be done with the unit open, the hospital brought in 50 additional staff members.

“Staff came from both within the hospital, outside of the hospital from other areas within the region and we’ve also got some new graduates that have chosen to work on this unit,” said Bartsch.

The unit received money from the provincial government through the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative, St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation and a donation from Rawlco Radio’s Gordon and Doug Rawlinson.

The Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative is working to reduce surgery wait times to three months by March 31, 2014. As of June of this year, 97 per cent of patients receive surgery within 12 months.

news@panow.com

by paNOW

St. Paul’s Hospital opens new surgical unit

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