Windsor Regional Hospital is drastically improving patient wait times thanks to recently created operational command centres.
Since the command centres were opened at the Met and Ouellette campuses on October 23, 2017, admitted patients are waiting less time in the emergency department. They are also being brought to an inpatient bed sooner, and the number of off service patients has been significantly reduced.
The heads of various departments at Windsor Regional Hospital hold a command centre meeting for hospital board members and media at the Metropolitan campus, January 11, 2018. Photo by Mark Brown/Blackburn News.
Karen McCullough, the chief nursing executive at Windsor Regional Hospital, says it previously took up to 11 hours to find an available bed for a patient. She says with the command centres, that wait has been cut to two-and-a-half hours at the Met Campus, and three-and-a-half hours at the Ouellette Campus.
"When everybody sits together in one room and you have all of your information in real time, you can make really quick, instant decisions. So it's been absolutely amazing for us," she says.
McCullough says the command centres make it easier to track where every patient is, who every patient is, where they're going and how they'll get there. It also keeps track of bed availability and ensures planning for potential staffing issues.
"It's the hub of coordinating the flow of patients through a hospital. We have not had that before," she says.
Staff at the command centres conduct four brief meetings a day, and both centres are connected by video conference to enable information to be shared easier.
The room resembles NASA's Mission Control, complete with huge, high-tech computer screens with information on both the main Metropolitan and the Ouellette campuses. There is also a large desk with computer screens, which is staffed by two or three people all day, every day.
The idea for the command centres was established after local frontline hospital staff travelled to the UK and saw one used in a hospital in Ipswitch, England. The project was implemented after an 18-month planning process.
"I have never seen a project get implemented and get the results we've seen from day one... I've never seen anything like it," says McCullough.
She says the planning for the command centres had been going on for 18 months before they opened in October.
In the future, the hospital intends to improve software systems and methods for tracking patient flow. More high tech equipment is also anticipated in the command centres.