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Hospital rooms going co-ed

North Bay General Hospital News Release ********************* To avoid patient discomfort and unnecessary room transfers at the new North Bay Regional Health Centre, a new practice will be implemented that will allow staff to place patients of the op



North Bay General Hospital
News Release

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To avoid patient discomfort and unnecessary room transfers at the new North Bay Regional Health Centre, a new practice will be implemented that will allow staff to place patients of the opposite sex in the same acute care inpatient hospital room.

Nancy Jacko, Vice President Medicine Care Centre says the goal is to provide the most efficient care for patients, adding this new practice will help to improve wait times. "The ability to place patients in co-ed rooms will help us reduce the time patients are on stretchers waiting for a room to become available, which can be very uncomfortable," Jacko says.

Balancing the need to transfer patients for infection control reasons, patient conditions or preferred accommodation requests along with trying to accommodate gender preference rooms can result in multiple transfers and unnecessary movement of patients.

"Many patients, especially elderly ones, can become disoriented after a number of room transfers. Changing locations multiple times also increases the risk of misplacing personal items, and room transfers off the unit means the patient will have an entirely new care team," Jacko explains.

Traditionally the hospital has worked to keep inpatient rooms to one gender. Tiziana Silveri, VP Surgery and Women and Children Care Centres explains that patient transfers uses up nursing time that could be spent providing patient care. "This practice can also delay transfers out of the operating room, emergency department and critical care unit," she says.

The design of the inpatient rooms at the new health centre are such that it is similar to having a private space. In semi-private rooms, patients are located on opposite sides of the room with a bathroom in-between the two beds, which is one reason why hospital staff is confident this new practice will work.

"The new design will allow us to maintain patient comfort and privacy," explains Silveri.

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Please note mixed-gender wards in the Sault Area Hospital have not been a complete success ... check out Hospital patient wonks cronk. Alarms woman in next bed