SAMARITAN'S NEW PAVILION

Many improvements in the intensive-care, progressive-care and medical/surgical units in Samaritan Medical Center's new pavilion came from people who heard patient gripes the most — the medical staff.

Pushing for single rooms for patient privacy and more effective communication to minimize wait times after a patient calls a nurse are just a couple accomplishments Samaritan staff achieved with the new structure.

As Cathy A. Voos, assistant nurse manager for critical care services, toured the pavilion's critical care services floor Thursday, she said extra mechanisms and added features in intensive-care unit rooms benefit staff as well because there is more room to maneuver around patients.

“The nurses had a lot of input as to how these went,” she said. “We have plugs on both sides and dialysis pipes are hidden behind a door, not coming from the floor like now.”

Kimberly A. Smith, critical care services nurse manager, said the relocation of the hospital's respiratory therapy unit to just outside the intensive care unit will improve the flow of patient care. Respiratory therapy is now a floor above the intensive care unit, which requires patients to wait longer for equipment or services.

Samaritan spokeswoman Krista A. Kittle said intensive care is the only unit that has patients on ventilators, so it made sense to centralize those services.

The new intensive unit has 10 beds, including two bariatric ones for patients over 400 pounds. Those beds, and 90 other new ones ordered, have built-in scales so its easier to weigh patients. Built-in alarms will alert staff if a patient has moved from a required position.

That alarm will be tied into the new Vocera system for wireless communications. Rebecca S. Randall, assistant nurse manager for the medical/surgical floor, said each nurse will wear a small device similar to a pendant that will allow them to hear and make calls to and from other nurses or doctors.

Dierdra D. Sorrell, medical/surgical nurse manager, said Vocera will eliminate patients' wait when they push a call button for a nurse to check in.

Several differences, Mrs. Smith said, are noted from the existing intensive unit — which was last updated in 1972 — to the new one. In the existing unit, excess equipment litters the hallway, and curtains separate each bay, leaving the area open to noise and distractions she said.

The new intensive rooms will have breakaway doors for easier accessibility if a patient is in crisis. Each will also have its own bathroom, telephone, computer for documentation and flat-screen television, all items the current intensive unit lacks.

The progressive care unit is on the same floor as the intensive care unit and respiratory therapy. A step down from intensive care, that unit has 20 beds, one more than exists today. Three of those rooms have doorways 1.5 times the size of a standard doorway to accommodate bariatric beds.

The intensive/progressive care waiting room will go from the five-person occupancy to seating for nearly two dozen. In the medical/surgical unit a floor up, however, there is room for only a couple of people in the waiting area. Ms. Randall said that is because visitors there are encouraged to be with families in their rooms.

There will be the same number of beds — 36 — on the unit, but they will all be private. Now, there are only five private rooms; the rest are double occupancy. A lack of privacy has been one of the biggest complaints at the hospital, according to Mrs. Sorrell.

“Now you have informed consumers,” she said. “They're aware of MRSA and other infections and diseases. They see precaution signs, and some patients get fearful of another patient coming in their room. It used to be just about privacy, but now it's more than that.”

Another addition for medical/surgical rooms, she said, will be a love seat that folds out to a bed, to encourage guests to stay overnight with patients.

Part of the hospital's $61 million expansion and renovation project, the 130,000-square-foot pavilion will be open before 71,500 square feet of hospital space is renovated.

As the intensive, progressive and medical/surgical units relocate to their new spaces the last weekend of the month and first days of November, some of the current hospital space will be emptied. Ms. Randall said staff will use as much of the old equipment as it can throughout the existing and new hospital space.

The connector from the second floor on the pavilion to the first floor of the existing hospital space has been finished. Floors have been renumbered to eliminate any reference to “ground level,” Ms. Kittle said, and all room numbers now have four digits.

From noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 16 and Oct. 17 Samaritan will open the pavilion to the community to preview each of the new floors, including the emergency department, surgical services and intensive, progressive and medical/surgical units.