Grace Hospital’s new ER set to open

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This article was published 24/05/2018 (2692 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The second phase of Winnipeg’s extensive health reorganization begins in earnest next week, with the opening of the Grace Hospital’s new emergency room.

At 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, the new ER — which is more than five times the size of the current one — will start accepting patients.

The 38,000-square-foot space is big, bright and gleaming, with colour co-ordinated pathways to guide people to areas specifically set up to handle low-, mid- or high-acuity patients.

Staff will communicate primarily with hands-free communication devices, to cut down on noise from booming overhead speakers, and will have access to a dedicated X-ray machine, lab and electrocardiogram spaces.

“It’s going to be tremendous for patients, in terms of getting treatment, getting care, getting it quickly,” Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen said recently, during the first of two tours of the new ER.

The Free Press was among several media outlets given a glimpse of the new facility: first, as contractors were finishing their work; later, as nurses and health-care workers bustled about, strategizing how best to operate in the space.

The sheer size of the new ER means plenty of changes.

Patients who have less serious ailments are to be grouped near the front of the ER, where people can walk in; those with more serious issues are grouped near the ambulance bay, which can fit six ambulances or a major incident response vehicle (MIRV). Grace Hospital will be the only Winnipeg ER with the ability to receive and unload a city bus-sized MIRV indoors.

The move means the Grace ER will have 24 patient spots with cardiac monitoring (from eight). The hospital’s chief operating officer, Kellie O’Rourke, said that’s the biggest reason staff currently has to constantly shuffle patients.

“This is quite a bit more space,” she said, “so people will not necessarily need to move other than if they are improving or they’re nearing the end of their treatment, and they may just need another dose of IV antibiotics and then they’re on their way.”

In addition to the 24 monitored rooms, there are also two safe rooms, where staff can put a patient who becomes violent or who comes in escorted by police. (Both allow staff to cordon off people from the equipment in the room.)

A third room is for isolation purposes, in case of an airborne infection. If air flow is compromised, a little pink ball will spit out in a tube in front of the room to alert staff.

One day in early May, nursing staff moved about the space, helping to configure it to their own specifications. They were at the beginning stages of touring their new ER. In the last few weeks, those tours have segued to simulations.

While the ER is bigger, it’s not increasing its staff in any substantial way.

“We’re quite fine with the staffing that we have for most of the space,” O’Rourke said. “The fact that it’s bigger means there’s a little bit more walking.”

There’s a great deal of enthusiasm about the transition, said Shelley Keast, the hospital’s chief nursing officer. From the beginning, she said, nurses have been heavily involved in developing the new ER, joining nearly 20 working groups tasked with figuring out: “What are the challenges? What does this look like? How will that flow?”

The nearly two-month lag time between when staff had access to the space and Tuesday’s opening was a boon, Keast said.

“We walked it, we trialed it, and we went, ‘Oh this didn’t work, it’s too many steps,’ so we went back,” she said. “It’s a whole culture shift.”

Clinical resource nurse John Philip said he and his colleagues have been “waiting for this for a long time.”

The space is flooded with natural light; a design decision arrived at in part through community consultation.

“In the old department, it’s very dark,” Philip said, “Here, we can figure out when is the day time and when is the night time.”

The spaciousness should also put an end to “hallway medicine,” he said — a reality of the current ER.

“We will have more time for our patients to be actually getting the care that they need, not moving around people,” Philip said. “Here we won’t have any patients in the hallway.”

The emergency room opening signals the launch of Phase 2 of the city’s health overhaul, said a Winnipeg Regional Health Authority spokeswoman via email. The second phase was delayed in December, following the release of the Manitoba Health wait-times reduction task force.

The task force recommended delaying, then staggering, the closure of the Concordia Hospital and Seven Oaks General Hospital ERs until the new Grace facility opened.

The report noted the need for substantial capital upgrades to St. Boniface Hospital’s ER, specifically saying “piecemeal renovations” wouldn’t be adequate.

The WRHA spokeswoman said the public can expect to hear details about Phase 2 next week.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca