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The New Inpatient Wing at Trillium - Mississauga
Innovative healing spaces for patients
Putting the needs of patients and staff first, Trillium Health Centre has created a bold, forward-thinking inpatient design, resulting in a state-of-the-art facility that will transform the way health care is delivered. The new $100 million, 190-bed inpatient wing is located at Trillium’s Mississauga location. Existing units within the hospital began moving into the new wing, located at Trillium-Mississauga, in March 2009.
The design of the new wing is focused on achieving better quality of care in new and important ways to Trillium patients and their families.
The design and architecture of Trillium’s new wing – and other redevelopment projects – is based on comprehensive, evidence-based research and stakeholder input. It is also a result of foresight and courage to try something that has never been done before.
Trillium is undertaking a major research study of patient outcomes to support this innovative, evidence-based hospital design. Trillium has joined The Center for Health Design’s Pebble Project® to measure a number of key outcomes, including patient outcomes, staff outcomes and efficiencies.
Breaking New Ground in Patient Room Design
Good health care heals. Great health care preserves your dignity, your independence and remembers that you’re a person, not just a patient. The design of the inpatient rooms in the new wing demonstrates Trillium’s commitment to enhancing the patient-centred experience.
Trillium has paid significant attention to the look, feel and flow of its patient care areas. Hospital planners spent a lot of time talking with patients and families about what they would like to see.
After all, you can’t transform the health care experience if you can’t “see” that experience from the patient’s perspective.
Design features of the new patient rooms include:
- Large windows for every patient to allow in natural, healing light - which studies have linked to better recovery rates for patients
- Enhanced privacy - innovative room layouts, separate entrances and privacy screens in semi-private spaces offer the feel and comfort of a private room
- Barrier-free accessibility throughout the entire building – including wheelchair accessible washrooms and showers in every room
- More space for visitors - adequate space for families and friends welcome them as an important part of the healing process
- Enhanced safety features - hand-washing sinks in each patient room for care providers and visitors improve patient and staff safety and seamless countertops and bacteria-resistant surfaces support infection control initiatives
- Ergonomically designed infrastructure - including convenient waist-height access to devices and equipment for staff allows staff to access devices and move patients more easily - which means more time to focus on patient care and less disruption to the patient and their families
- Bright colours and creative lighting contribute to a more warm, welcoming environment
- Televisions at every bedside - arm-mounted televisions can be equipped with earphones and are easily moveable by clinicians. Patients can activate the TVs to gain access to both cable and paid premium entertainment by calling a local customer service centre and using a credit card
- Healthy workplace environment for staff, physicians and volunteers
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Semi-private patient room in the new inpatient wing at Trillium-Mississauga |
Connecting Patients And Staff - Decentralized Care Environment And Wireless Technology
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Typical floor plan depicting the decentralized care environment in the new wing at Trillium-Mississauga |
Features of the new inpatient wing at Trillium Health Centre – Mississauga:
- Each unit is based on three 12-bed clusters, each attended by its own decentralized care station
- Quiet rooms for families, a patient lounge, a therapy/education room, gym, a staff lounge, a conference room and a team room are available on every floor
- A decentralized care environment brings care providers closer to their patients, reduces travel times, maximizes mobility of clinical and non-clinical teams, and increases nursing time at the bedside with patients meaning clinical staff spend less time walking and more time providing care
- Communications and information technology enablers - wireless networks and integrated communications infrastructure support mobility and the decentralization of staff and allow instant information sharing among care providers.
- Wireless nurse call devices connect patients to nurses directly – improving our responsiveness to patients’ requests while reducing the number of disruptive overhead pages
- Electronic input devices across all floors of the new inpatient wing enhance the mobility of health care professionals by providing them with vital information, test results and alerts wherever they are via eWhiteboards, Workstations on Wheels (WOWs), tablets and touchscreens
- Sophisticated, flexible architecture allows the hospital to reconfigure the floors to meet changing community needs over time
Advanced patient safety and infection prevention features: 50 percent private patient rooms; hand-washing sinks for staff and visitors in every room; seamless surfaces, mould-resistant building materials and bacteria-resistant countertops to facilitate thorough cleaning.
Environmental Features: Trillium Health Centre is recognized by the Ontario Government as an Environmental Leader in sustainable environmental practice. Trillium is the first multi-site hospital in the world to be awarded for its environmental standards.
As an “Energy Innovator" with ISO 14001 designation, Trillium is especially proud that the new wing will use energy efficient materials including windows and lighting fixtures and radiant ceiling heat which will help to safeguard the environment and significantly reduce operating costs.
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Creative lighting features and floor designs build ‘art’ right into the new wing’s design
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Measuring The Impact Of Evidence-Based Design On Patient Outcomes
Trillium is undertaking a five-year research project to measure key outcomes of the new wing. Trillium has received Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care funding to join the Pebble Project® to access to well-established research expertise in the area of hospital design and evaluation.
The “Pebble Project®”, an initiative of The Center for Health Design (www.healthdesign.org), a leading research and advocacy organization of healthcare and design professionals who are leading the quest to improve the quality of health care through building architecture and design. Project partners hope to create a ripple effect in the healthcare community by providing researched and documented examples of health care facilities whose design has made a difference in the quality of care and financial performance of the institution.
Trillium’s membership in the Pebble Project involves using a proprietary research methodology template to measure a number of outcomes of interest, including:
- Patient outcomes - patient satisfaction, patient safety (falls, medication errors, nosocomial infections), medication use
- Staff outcomes - travel distances, nursing satisfaction, Occupational Health and Safety indicators, workflow efficiencies
- Efficiencies - length of stay, internal patient transfers, response time, bed turnaround times, time required to access data
The five-year study will measure these outcomes for patients in the new wing at Trillium-Mississauga beginning in the Fall of 2009. Trillium began collecting patient data for these outcomes in existing facilities in June 2008.
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