A brand new emergency department at the Sturgeon Community Hospital will drastically improve the experience of hospital patients and staff but will not change capacity, according to Alberta Health Services (AHS).
At 2,160 sq. metres, the new emergency room (ER), which opened to the public yesterday, is significantly larger than the 790 sq. m of the old ER and is part of a planned $43.4-million hospital redevelopment.
The new facility includes the same 38 treatment spaces and 19 beds as the old ER with room for an additional 13 treatment spaces as demand grows.
“There will be a much nicer environment for the people coming to the emerge department but we will still have the same capacity,” said Dr. Daniel Hryciuk, an ER physician at the Sturgeon.
While some rooms in the new department contain multiple treatment spaces, there are also a handful of individual treatment rooms.
“Each patient has their own treatment space with a set of doors, a set of curtains and lights that can be lowered so if they’re here during the night, they can actually snooze or have a restful nap in the afternoon,” explained Cindy MacVicar, the hospital’s patient care manager, emergency.
Treatment space at the new ER now stands at 1,660 sq. m, compared to 655 sq. m in the old facility. Also new to the ER are 10 internal waiting treatment spaces and three EMS holding spaces, both of which did not exist in the old facility.
With the redevelopment, which will open in stages, the Sturgeon will now have a specific mental health treatment area with an observation nursing bay and security on hand at all times.
More storage space, updated furnishings and a quiet room for families are also part of the new space, which has been designed to meet the growing population of St. Albert, north Edmonton and Sturgeon County.
Eventually the old ER will be renovated and turned into a minor treatment area and a new cast room, part of phase two of the redevelopment, which is scheduled for completion within six to eight months.
Phase two will also see the completion of a six-vehicle ambulance bay, new admitting desk, more office space and a new place for health records. The parking lot located between the hospital and St. Albert Trail will be converted back into public and patient parking starting next summer.
Perhaps most noticeable is the new entranceway to the emergency department, which includes a significantly larger and brighter seating area and is easier for patients to navigate.
Linda Cargill, executive director of community and rural hospitals for AHS, said the hospital will not get any additional staff to work in the emergency room at this time.
“It gives you a chance to move in, figure out the space, figure out your issues in the space, because there are always issues in the space, new processes that you need to deal with, add capacity as you are able to bring it on,” she said.
“We do have the capacity for future expansion.”
But increasing capacity could simply mean increasing the number of frail and elderly patients awaiting hospital admittance, said Hryciuk.
Under the province’s 5-Year Health Action Plan unveiled earlier this month, AHS is aiming to have 90 per cent of emergency department patients admitted to a hospital within eight hours by 2014/15.
“We don’t see where they can be admitted to because there is no bigger in-patient capacity in our hospital anticipated that I’ve seen,” Hryciuk said.
Asked if there might be pressure to open the additional space sooner given lengthy ER wait times across the province, Cargill said the additional space will be opened as demand increases.
“If you have a three-lane highway that empties in to a one lane highway, you’re always going to have road blocks and you don’t deal with a road block by adding a fourth lane to the highway,” she said, adding that enhancing home care and facility living are among some of the initiatives the province is currently working on.
“You actually get the right flow and in the midst of that, as we get the right flow of patients moving through and the community increases, so the demand for emergency services goes up, yes we’ll get the funding to open the rest,” she said.
“You don’t fund something for the wrong solution. It’s just a case of following it through, opening it up when emergency capacity demands that we need to do that,” Cargill said.
The new emergency room has the capacity for 65,000 visits annually, almost double that of the old facility.
MacVicar said the new triage assessment area and internal waiting area are among some aspects of the new ER that will improve the department for both patients and staff.
“Will it make it ideal? Will it make it what everybody wants? I think that’s a huge challenge and I don’t think that it will do that,” she said.
“We’re going to do the best we can.”
