‘This redesigned space creates a more comfortable, supportive environment for patients and supports better patient flow and experiences,’ emergency director says<\/p>\n
Southlake Health has completed an\u00a0expansion of\u00a0its emergency department to help\u00a0alleviate overcrowding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The project, completed after more than a year of construction,\u00a0is a major step toward addressing the growing health care needs in our communities, according to\u00a0Southlake’s emergency department director, Katrina Scott.<\/p>\n
\u201cA new patient arrives in the emergency department approximately every four-and-a-half minutes. This redesigned space creates a more comfortable, supportive environment for patients and supports better patient flow and experiences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Newmarket-based hospital utilized\u00a0a paramedic garage next to the department for the expansion, as Southlake faces ongoing capacity issues. While emergency\u00a0boasts short wait times to see a doctor, many patients still face long waits for a hospital bed to become available.<\/p>\n
Southlake is\u00a0working toward\u00a0a second hospital site, but with that being years on the horizon, it needed the expansion to address capacity challenges sooner.<\/p>\n
The expansion added more than 2,400 square feet of purpose-built space in the department. Improvements include\u00a0adding a third desk for patient registration, three additional patient consultation rooms with exam tables, creating a rapid EMS triage booth and more natural light.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expansion gives our team the space and privacy they need to assess patients more efficiently and compassionately, while maintaining the highest standards of care,\u201d chief of emergency medicine Dr. Gaurav Puri said.<\/p>\n
The project was completed in phases, with the expansion of the space originally completed at the end of January. Over the past several months, phase two has included significant renovation of front-end emergency department areas.<\/p>\n
The expansion was funded in part through the fundraising efforts of the Southlake Health Foundation. The foundation has already raised $5.5 million, but that represents only half of their fundraising goal for the project, according to chief development officer Lesley Ring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are truly grateful for the caring and thoughtful support from our donors, which has enabled us to make significant progress on expanding our emergency department,\u201d Ring said. \u201cWith the support of our donors, we can face hallway medicine head-on for better patient and provider experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘This redesigned space creates a more comfortable, supportive environment for patients and supports better patient flow and experiences,’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,29307,392],"class_list":["post-40977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthnewmarketsouthlake-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}