EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to Part 2 of our Central Colchester East Hants Health Centre fast facts. Part 1 appeared in the Tuesday edition of the Truro Daily News.
TRURO – Between Nov. 19 and 25. programs and services will begin moving from the Colchester Regional Hospital to the new Colchester East Hants Health Centre at 600 Abenaki Road in Truro.
Here are some more fast facts about this new facility:
1. The Pharmacy Department reviews and enters over 30,000 physician order sheets for medications each year and supports the delivery of between 3000-3500 doses of medication per day. Omnicell cabinets will be in place on each nursing unit. These systems are like ATMs that dispense medications. The cabinets are protected by passwords, alert pharmacy team members when inventories are running low and offer safeguards to protect patients from medication errors.
2. The health centre has been designed and equipped with many green features including low flow sinks; LED and automatic lighting; dishwashers that use 30 per cent less water and heat wheels that will re-claim heat from exhausted air. These heat wheels are expected to pay for themselves within about two year through the energy savings they make possible. All of the green features may help avoid carbon gas emissions equal to what 2700 vehicles would produce each year.
3. The new Emergency Department is 50 per cent larger and has been built to include 27 exam rooms and two trauma rooms. The new health centre will open with the same level of staffing as the current site and will initially have 17 exam rooms and 2 trauma rooms in service. A new helipad is included at the site to allow for rapid transport of patients to and from the health centre.
4. The new six-bed Palliative Care Unit is designed to offer care, comfort and support to palliative receiving end of life care and their families. Each patient will have a private room and the furniture and finishes will help provide a more home-like feel. The unit also includes a solarium and patient balcony. Our partner - Colchester East Hants Hospice Society - will provide well-trained palliative care volunteers to help support patients and families during this challenging time in their lives.
5. A seven-bed unit has been designated for the care of stroke patients. Organized stroke care units are shown to improve patients' chances of surviving a stroke and returning home after their stroke.
6. The renal dialysis service currently has three chairs, operates six days a week and cares for nearly 20 regular patients. Most of these patients receive their treatments three times a week for 4-5 hours a day. At the new health centre space has been constructed which would make an expansion of this service possible down the road. In the future, three times as many dialysis chairs could be in use which would make it possible for more individuals to receive dialysis services locally, rather than having to travel back and forth to Halifax.
7. The health centre has six new birthing suites known as LBRPs. Short for labour, birthing, recovery and post partum rooms, these suites are unique in Nova Scotia and will allow most mothers and their partners to remain in one room from the time they are labour until they are discharged to home. The rooms are next to the Operating Rooms to allow for quick access to emergency c-sections should the need arise.
8. Ankle bracelet with sensors will be placed on newborns and will help prevent abductions by sounding an alarm to alert our team if someone tries to take a baby off the unit without permission.
9. More than 1,200 patients are admitted to the Intensive care Unit (ICU) each year. Patients may have had a heart attack, stroke, surgery, a serious injury, or other illness requiring specialized medical and nursing care. At times, patients are so critically-ill that machines that support breathing must be used, in addition to other equipment to help monitor and provide life supporting treatments. The new ICU has eight private and more spacious rooms to support care and recovery.
10. Bedside terminals will be used to provide patient phones and entertainment (TV, radio, movies, web access) and care providers will also be able to use the screens to access patient information and results.
11. More than 7,500 surgical procedures and tests are performed at the Colchester Regional Hospital each year. Approximately 25 per cent of these are major surgeries and the vast majority of cases are day surgeries. The new health centre has three large Operating Rooms (OR) and a 4th OR was built for future development. Two rooms have been built to accommodate endoscopy (scope) procedures and one suite has been dedicated for urology.
12. A resource room supported by volunteers will be available next to the Chemotherapy Clinic. This room will provide cancer patients with access to resources such as prosthetics and wigs and other supports.
13. The new Psychiatric Unit will have 10 inpatients beds and two observation beds. The unit has been constructed to allow for up to 20 beds to open in the future.
14. Isolation rooms throughout the health centre will help prevent the spread of infection by allowing patients with infections such as MRSA (harmful bacteria that resists antibiotics) to be separated from other patients while they receive care.
