Opening the doors to a new era of health-care delivery in Niagara.
On Sunday, March 24, 2013 a new era of health-care delivery will come to life in Niagara when the new St. Catharines Site of the Niagara Health System goes live, enabling us to provide one million square feet of care in a state-of-the-art, patient-centred environment.
For those eager to provide or receive care at our new hospital, this means only 268 more days, 9 months, 38 weeks, 6,432 hours, 385,920 minutes or 23,155,200 seconds!
“While months of planning go into the transition phase it is quite remarkable that the actual patient move occurs in a single day,” says Interim President & CEO Sue Matthews.
The move is being by supported by Health Care Relocations (HCR) as part of Plenary Health Niagara’s team. HCR is a renowned company in the health-care field that has been providing transition planning services exclusively to hundreds of healthcare clients in Canada and the U.S.A. since 1993.
“HCR is dedicated to supporting the NHS in achieving a safe and seamless transition to the new facility, without unnecessary interruption to patient care,” indicates Sue.
“This includes a solid commitment to the guiding principles that have been established for our move date process: ensuring a patient focus for move day, minimizing any time that services will not be available and looking after the safety of patients and staff in implementing the move.”
While HCR are welcome, experienced partners in assisting with the move, the NHS will lead any patient transfers associated with the transition. As such, the move plan requires a coordinated, logistical planning effort involving staff, physicians and volunteers.
The Hospital is in the process of developing multidisciplinary teams of staff to ensure a safe and successful patient move, composed of members such as: departmental move coordinators; housekeeping; lift teams; respiratory therapy; patient registration; ICT; biomed; infection control; and a transport team composed of physicians, RNs, RPNs, porters, patient escorts, etc.
“We recognize that our patients’ family and loved ones will also be an important support to our patients on move day and we look forward to including them as members of our move team,” adds Sue.
The NHS will also work with community partners in implementing the move including Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) transfers, passenger van and small bus transfers.
The first step in the overall move sequence will occur at the beginning of next year when the regional kitchen will be implemented at the new St. Catharines Site. The remainder of services will be moved over a sequence of events throughout March of 2013, with the patient move occurring on March 24, 2013.
Urgent and emergent services will be maintained throughout the entire move period. An extensive awareness campaign will be instituted by the NHS to advise the community regarding where to go for care in the months leading up to the new hospital opening.
With 149 days left in the construction schedule, the building is looking more like a hospital with each day that passes and is on budget and on schedule at over 91% completion. The design of this world-class facility took the strengths of local knowledge from our clinicians and global expertise of our architects to create a building focused on the patient experience.
Although construction will be completed on November 26, 2012, the period between then and “go live” will be used to train and orient staff to the site and also welcome community members to tour their new hospital before it opens to provide patient care.
Opening the doors to a new era of health-care delivery in Niagara
