The days of treating patients in hallways at Prince Edward Island's largest referral hospital is over as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital's new $16-million emergency department opened for business on Friday, says Anita MacKenzie.
The nurse manager for the emergency department described the practise of treating patients in hallways in the emergency department as degrading.
But with limited space, MacKenzie said they had no choice.
In the early morning hours Friday, the new emergency department opened its doors. It's 23,000 square feet, almost three times the size of the old emergency department.
The entrance is right next door to the old emergency department. Huge red, bilingual signs saying "emergency" hang over the new canopy.
MacKenzie says the transition, which began shortly after midnight on Friday, went smoothly.
The hospital chose early Friday morning because it's usually quieter. They decided to hold off on doing it earlier in the week because of high school graduations and the increased possibility of a disaster.
"I actually got to lock the other doors,," said MacKenzie, who has worked in the emergency department for seven years.
"We turned on the lights and opened the doors here and we were in immediate business. We didn't have a lot of turnaround time.
"We had extra nursing staff on last night, we had doctors that overlapped, we had extra support staff in - housekeeping, porters, IT, Cerner - we had a lot of support around for us."
The new department emphasizes privacy, safety and efficiency. It includes 29 exam rooms, 37 patient rooms, two critical care rooms, a diagnostic imaging suite for x-ray, an ambulance bay that can accommodate up to four and room for future growth. That includes space for a second CT scan for the emergency room only and additional rooms that can be opened in future years when needed.
The crown jewel of the new emergency department is the large trauma room that can accommodate two patients at a time and expand to house four patients in an emergency.
The new emergency room is part of a multi-stage, $24-million expansion and renovation at the 28-year-old hospital.
A new ambulatory care centre is now under construction near the hospital's front doors.
MacKenzie said people who enter the new emergency department should take a seat on the big, lime green sofa. They'll then be taken into one of the two triage rooms where they'll be assessed.
After that they'll either be sent back out to be registered or taken into the emergency department in the event of a more urgent emergency and a bed side registration will take place inside a treatment room.
There is also a volunteer greeter now at the doorway going into the emergency room.
"In our waiting room, wherever we were designing it, we gave a lot of thought to infection control. Infection control is huge with us now, with superbugs and whatever.
"The way we designed our waiting room we can actually triage out into the vestibule of the entrance and we're able to keep patient populations separated."
The new emergency department is equipped to deal with up to 60,000 visits annually. It currently handles about 47,000 annually.
MacKenzie said the new emergency department should also reduce wait times.
"We're hoping to be able to place patients immediately into waiting areas. Certainly having some space available to do that keeps the flow going."
QEH Quick Facts
- Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) serves as the provincial referral centre for specialized hospital services;
- The hospital is a multi-service acute care facility that provides both community services and specialized provincial services, and supports both in-patient and outpatient care;
- Established in 1982, it is a 274 bed hospital.
