Bay Weekend
1
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Eastern Bay Edition
March 2014
From the Chair
The long wait is almost at an end; our new hospital
is nearly complete. I am sure everyone has been
watching the developments on site month by
month as the building has steadily grown.
On April 5 we are holding an open day for the
new Whakatane Hospital, and what a great asset
it is going to be for everyone in the Eastern Bay
of Plenty. The open day will give everyone the
opportunity to come and see the facility before it
starts being used, or before you arrive as a patient.
As you walk around I know you will be impressed
with the great layout and the roominess of the
building. There are three improvements from our
current facility that I think are particularly great:
•
The covered ambulance bay – no longer will
you run the risk of getting wet if you come
to hospital by ambulance. As you know the
current facility has a slightly covered mostly
open area for the ambulance. Now it will be
totally covered and private – a great
improvement.
•
The courtyard – the open courtyard in the
middle of the building will be such an
improvement. It’s a beautiful sunny area that
will be a huge asset for patients and families,
especially those with children.
•
When you come to see the new hospital, take the
time to walk down the History Wall which was
unveiled in August last year. It shows the 100
years growth and development on the Whakatane
Hospital site from 1900 through to 2009. The new
building is not a beginning rather the continuation
of a proud tradition of providing health services
for the people of the Eastern Bay of Plenty, for
each and every one of you.
See you at the open day.
Sally Webb
Chair, Bay of
Plenty District
Health Board
Everything on one floor – no more lift rides to
theatre or X-ray.
New ways of working
Staff at Whakatane Hospital are counting
down the days until they start working in
the new Whakatane Hospital. Project Waka
Change Manager Fiona Burns has been
working with clinical and supporting groups
on the ways their processes will change in
the new building.
“When we heard we had approval to build
a new Whakatane Hospital, we wanted to
ensure that all services were equipped to
provide the best possible care for the patients
and best working environment for the staff,”
she says. “The patient flow, between the
departments and the different services that
work together, was a particularly important
consideration within the design process. This
has led to the development of some process
changes.”
Last year Whakatane Hospital staff had the
opportunity to test some of these changes.
There has been phasing in of different ways
of working throughout the hospital and Fiona
says they have been considering how their
physical environment will be changing and
how this will relate to their ways of working
within the hospital.
One of those changes is the use of a ‘triage
first’ system in the Emergency Department.
Triage is the system of assessing a patient’s
condition and determining the urgency of
care.
The new Whakatane
Hospital has…
… state-of-the-art air conditioning, fire safety and security features, along with
the most up to date medical equipment. The result is a light and airy building
that houses a new Emergency Department, Acute Care Unit, Children’s Ward,
Inpatients Ward, Radiology Services and Theatres.
ED Nurse Manager Colleen MacGregor
explains: “From 8.30am in the morning until
8.00pm at night instead of patients coming
in to see the receptionist first, they’ll come
in directly to the nurse. The nurse will then
be able to assess the patient’s condition and
prioritise Emergency Department patients
according to their condition, in order for the
sickest patients to be seen first.”
Clinical Director of Emergency Medicine
Derek Sage says Triage First is a major step
in the right direction for patient safety and
quality of emergency care.
Whakatane Hospital staff have been
preparing for this change since a pilot Acute
Care Unit was opened in April 2013 in the
current hospital building. This was set up
prior to the new building opening, to ensure
that new processes could be developed and
staff could be trained in the skills required.
Other changes to the new Whakatane
Hospital include the Acute Care Unit being
beside the Emergency Department which
Five years in
the planning
After five years of planning,
designing and building, the new
Whakatane Hospital is nearly
finished. Whakatane Hospital staff
have dedicated countless hours
to the design and construction of
your new hospital.
The project, named Project ‘Waka’,
began in 2009 when Clinical User
Groups met with architects to map
out the design of the new hospital
building, including room sizes,
functions and how departments fit
together.
District Health Board Property Services General Manager and Project Director Jeff
Hodson outside the new Whakatane Hospital.
will group all of the Acute Care Services
into one location. This will allow doctors
based in the Emergency Department to have
quicker access to seriously unwell patients in
the Acute Care Unit.
Bay of Plenty District Health
Board General Manager Property
Services Jeff Hodson says each
of the different groups brought
essential knowledge to the table.
“This enabled us to produce a
hospital site that provides the
best service possible for the
community,” he says.
Jeff has also acted as the Project
Director for the hospital build,
providing the integral link between
the design of the building and the
construction of the impressive
Seven user groups were involved
8000sqm building. Jeff says of the
in this process and over the five
experience and process: “It has
years of the project,
been a lot of work for
approximat Vǐ