Emergency Department Expansion Update

Emergency Department Expansion Nears Completion

St. Tammany Parish Hospital’s $21 million expansion project, a multiyear undertaking that includes creation of specialized pediatric and mental-health treatment areas in its Emergency Department, will conclude near the end of 2016.

STPH already has completed several major phases of the overall project, including the 2015 opening of 21 new private patient rooms in its 3 North addition.

Key work related to the 8,800-square-foot expansion will continue late into 2016, although much of the work will be out of view of patients.

However, some notable aspects of the Emergency Department expansion will be completed in the first quarter of 2016. They include a permanent pedestrian entrance to replace the temporary one, a new patient triage area and a more visible security office in the patient waiting area.

A new “results pending” area within the Emergency Department also will open by the close of the first quarter and allow emergency medical staff to treat patients more quickly.

The area works like this. Patients who have received emergency care and are awaiting physicians’ orders, prescriptions or non-emergency test results will move to bays with chairs in this new area so that treatment beds are available sooner for other patients.

The concept is new, and designed to further enhance STPH’s already effective protocols for quickly treating emergency patients.

“The idea is when you are dressed and ready to go you don’t need to be lying in an emergency bed,” said Kerry Milton RN, director of nursing. “This gives people a sense of movement that allows us to use our facility to get them the care they need with maximum efficiency.”

STPH patients and visitors may notice other changes in the early months of 2016. The hospital’s recent transition to fully electronic health records means Emergency Department nurses won’t carry paper charts when they interact patients at the bedside.

Instead, electronic status boards mounted on the walls in treatment areas will convey up-to-the-minute patient information to the medical staff. (See story in this issue on what the new EPIC digital system means for patients.) Nurses will roll wheeled carts to the bedside to enter vital patient information into the digital system.

“The nurses will remain in close proximity to patients, while the new computerized system means less opportunity for error and less need to bombard patients with questions,” Milton said. “For patients, it will be an exciting time.”