KGH Centennial Building Feature Stories

An Environment for Healing

It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast. But Danielle Cameron and her staff are happy it did.

When planning for the new Centennial Building at Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) first began more than five years ago, the medical inpatient unit Cameron manages on 4 East in the Strathcona Building, was not part of the plans.

But, as a result of a set of circumstances involving the subsequent announcement of funding to build the Interior Heart and Surgical Centre, it was decided that 4 East would be relocated to the Centennial Building. It will be rechristened 6 West, by virtue of its location on the 6^th floor.

“Everyone’s really excited about the new space and how it will improve the patient experience,” says Cameron.

Strathcona is the second oldest building at KGH. It has served the people of Kelowna well, and continues to do so. But with a growing and aging population the medical inpatient unit on 4 East is busy, sometimes to the point of overflowing.

“From a space perspective, everything is just very crowded,” says Cameron. “Crowding in and of itself causes issues with patient care and safety for staff and families.”

Things are about to change. The new 34-bed unit on 6 West will be a world of difference.

Three-quarters of the rooms on the unit will be private (i.e. one patient per room) while the remaining four rooms will have two patients.

Private and semi-private rooms are the new standard from an infection control perspective. But beyond that, they “will be a big step up from where we are now,” says Cameron. “4 East is very dark, the windows are small, hallways are cluttered, it’s just very busy and cluttered.”

By contrast, 26 of the 34 beds on 6 West have lake views, and will have large windows to bring in copious amounts of natural light, which has been proven to have benefits to healing.

Where patients on 4 East have had to make do with one bathroom per four-bed ward and two bath tubs on the whole unit, each room on 6 West will have its own bathroom with shower.

There will be much more space to accommodate visiting family members who want or need to remain close to their loved one, and the addition of a “quiet room” and a patient and family room.

And the 10-bed medical teaching unit, which opened on 4 East in January 2011, will also move over. The expanded space will proved a much more conducive learning environment for graduate and undergraduate trainees, as well as nursing and other allied health professionals, and includes a student room and a multidisciplinary media/meeting room.

Ultimately, it is the intersection of patients, their families and staff where the biggest benefits will be come, says Cameron.

“The new unit will incorporate many dimensions of patient and family-centred care.”

The larger, more private rooms will provide patients and their families with the dignity to be able to have private and confidential conversations with staff.

They will allow families to participate more actively in their loved ones’ care.

And the larger, more healthy environment throughout the unit will improve the environment for everyone who finds themselves on 6 West, whether as a patient or a caregiver.

For more stories, see the Building Patient Care newsletter for January, 2012.

McNair Finally Finds a Home

When Dr. Frank McNair opened the first mental health unit in Kelowna, it’s a safe bet he didn’t anticipate it would still be in use nearly half a century later.

“It was not designed to be a psych unit,” says Jana Abetkoff, manager of acute psychiatry at Kelowna General Hospital (KGH). “It was just a refurbished, retrofitted area of the old hospital” put into action out of the need to care for people with mental illness.

Dr. McNair, the first psychiatrist to practice in the Okanagan Valley, was committed to modernizing and progressing the care received by people with mental illness using a least-restrictive, humanistic approach.  He, and those who came after him, have longed for a more appropriate space to care for those patients in need of mental health and substance use issues.

So it’s great news that almost 50 years since Dr. McNair founded that first unit that bears his name – in the fall of 1962 – patients and staff will be moving into a brand new unit. And they’ll be taking the McNair name with them.

The 5^th floor of the new Centennial Building will be christened the McNair Mental Health and Substance Use Unit. And will it ever be an improvement.

First of all there is the practical aspect of having a purpose-built unit with everything from fixtures to sinks to cabinets and doors and windows designed and built with the care of the mental health client in mind.

Just as importantly, “the unit will be a much more home-like environment”, says Abetkoff, pointing to the more welcoming colour palette in the unit, the natural light streaming through large windows, and more comfortable areas to participate in social activities and treatment.

“We know that the more welcoming and home-like the environment, the more accurate the assessment of the patient will be. It’s also a much more enjoyable environment for staff to work in.  In this new space, staff will be better equipped to provide care that is patient and family-centered.”

The new McNair unit will also be much larger than the old one. Of the 43 total bed spaces included in the unit, all but four will be single rooms. (Not all bed spaces will open at once. There will be about eight to 10 bed spaces left for future capacity as demand increases and funding becomes available.)

The Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit alone will be like moving from a broom closet to a spacious care area. What is now just a small unit will become an expansive space in the new McNair Unit, with capacity in the future for up to nine patients (it can currently only accommodate three).

The size of the floor plate isn’t an improvement in and of itself, of course. It’s more about how the space will improve the experience of care for patients and staff.

The current unit has very little “public space” – space where patients can visit with loved ones, participate in treatment, have a private discussion with a clinician, or just be alone.

“Right now, the OT [occupational therapy] room acts as an OT room, a group therapy room, an interview room, a conference room and a fitness room,” says Abetkoff. “In the new space, the OT room will just be an OT room because we have space to accommodate those other functions.”

There will also be quiet interview and group therapy areas, a resource room, a fitness/wellness area, a secure outdoor patio and other areas. And the unit is partnerting with the Emergency Department in the creation of a dedicated Mental Health zone in the Emergency Department which will assist with more appropriate assessment and triage of mental health and substance use clients .

No doubt, Dr. McNair would be proud to have his name attached to a facility that is going to advance the cause of mental health as much as this one.

For more stories, see the Building Patient Care newsletter for December, 2011.

A Whole New Kelowna General Hospital

Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) is growing up with this growing community.

When the new Centennial and East Pandosy Buildings open at KGH on May 27, 2012, they will bring with them a whole new level of care to the Okanagan.

It’s no secret that KGH has been too small for some time. While the staff and physicians who work there are some of the best health care professionals in the province, and are acknowledged for the great work they do, they have had to do that work under challenging conditions.

It’s been difficult for patients too. If you’ve had to go to the hospital lately, you’ll know it’s crowded, without a lot of privacy or modern conveniences to make your stay easier emotionally or physically.

The new Centennial Building is addressing many of those problems, and it’s going to do it with the capacity to grow with the community out to 2024 and beyond.

On the ground floor of the Centennial Building, the new Emergency Department will be four times the size of the current one. This will allow physicians and nurses to work in a much more patient-friendly environment.

The ED will be connected directly to a brand new heli-pad via elevator. This will be the first time a helicopter service will be able to bring critically ill or injured patients directly by air to the hospital, shaving up to half an hour off of response times. Every time you hear the sound of that helicopter, just think, a life is being saved.

New advances in how patients are managed, such as patient streaming and specialized minor treatment zones, mean wait times in Emergency will be reduced. Best of all, patient exam areas will be more spacious, with three walls and a glass door around each patient. That will ensure patients have the privacy and confidentiality they deserve to talk to their physician, to be treated by their nurse, to visit with their family members with dignity.

Patient and family-centred care is the hallmark of the entire expansion at KGH. A 34-bed medical inpatient unit will move into the 6th floor. Where those patients currently reside in four-bed rooms, with one bathroom per room and two baths for the entire floor, they will now have 26 private rooms and 4 two-bed rooms. Each room with have its own bathroom with shower. And the floor will have plenty of room for patients and families to have privacy when they need it.

The McNair Psychiatric Unit has taken wonderful care of patients for half a century in an area that was never designed for mental health and substance use patients. It will be relocated to the 5th floor of the Centennial Building, where they will find a much more patient-focused environment.

All patient wards feature large windows with copious amounts of natural light and views — both essential factors in improving patient outcomes and getting people healthier faster.

You’ll find the same features in the new ambulatory care department. This area is where you will come if you are having procedures done on an outpatient basis — where you go home without staying overnight — such as a scope procedure or IV therapy, for instance. There will also be a new renal department and new eye care centre.

The department is three times as large as the existing one, and will bring together a number of services currently in various locations. This will make the experience much more comfortable and efficient for patients, reducing waiting and allowing people to return home faster.

Five new operating rooms up to 60 percent larger than the existing ones will also be opening in the new Centennial Building. These will have the latest in technology and will allow surgeons to work in a much more efficient environment. An added benefit of the ORs moving to the new building is that it will free up two of the old ORs to be renovated and used for open heart surgery for the first time ever in the Interior, beginning in December 2012.

Across the street from the Centennial Building, via an enclosed pedestrian bridge, is the East Pandosy Building. This building will house many of the clinical support services currently in the Pandosy Building, as well as new lab services. Doing so will allow the demolition of the old Pandosy Building in anticipation of the construction of the new Interior Heart and Surgical Centre, which will open in 2016.

Overarching the entire development at KGH are two very important improvements to patient care in the Okanagan. Modern infection control standards have been built into every aspect of design. This will decrease the incidence of people getting sick while in hospital, as well as allowing patients to get healthy faster.

The new building will also support the Southern Medical Program and the training of new physicians, by providing the space and facilities to turn KGH into a true teaching hospital. And that will benefit everyone in the Southern Interior as we start to see doctors who are trained here decide to stay here and set up practices and work in the Southern Interior for decades to come.