With the goals of increasing patient privacy and flow, and overall efficiency of the space, the first phase of renovations to the Creston Valley Hospital’s emergency room will begin tomorrow.
With Creston’s T.A. Rendek and Associates Ltd. as contractor, a new triage and registration room, renovated central nursing station and redeveloped fast-track area for minor treatment.
“As our numbers have increased in the emergency department, we’ve realized that our space, though big, is not efficient,” site manager Carolyn Hawton said this morning. “Out ultimate hope is that it will decrease wait times in the ER. There will be more care areas for them to be seen.”
Currently, patients triaged at a score of 4 or 5 can wait two to four hours to be seen. During the renovation, though, that wait may be longer, as the existing eight beds will drop to five for the project’s second phase.
Phase 1 begins Jan. 14, and will last three or four weeks while ducting and electrical work are done.
That phase will mark one of the biggest changes in the facility, when public access is severed between the ER and the rest of the hospital. The change will be a permanent one, helping to address privacy and confidentiality by keeping patients out of sight by the public.
Phase 2 will follow and last 14-16 weeks, as the bulk of the structural changes are made. During this time, outside access to the ER will be through the ambulance loading doors rather than the main ER entrance.
With only five beds available and wait times temporarily increased, patients are being asked to see their own doctors for non-urgent care, although hospital staff are planning to keep the transition as smooth as possible.
“It will be moment by moment,” said Hawton. “It just takes one ambulance to completely change it.”
When the Interior Health Authority announced the project in November, is was expected to total about $650,000, made possible by bequeathals from the estates of Jessie Julia Hopper, Don and Dariel Anne Korczynski, and Blanche Oleskiw, held by the East Kootenay Foundation for Health.
