Meadow Lake patients spending less time in hospital

Meadow Lake patients are spending less time in the hospital and the health region is crediting this to improved communication between the different departments.

Janaya Dubray, occupational therapist at the Meadow Lake Hospital said the improvement is a result of the hospital’s new discharge process.

“All the team members must work together to get the patient home safely. Each team member has their own goal for the patient and we found the communication between team members wasn’t there. So we’ve changed a lot of the processes we do within the hospital to help assist the discharge planning,” Dubray said, adding team members get together twice a week to discuss patient care.

Teammates ranging from nurses, doctors and physio therapists discuss patient care and set an estimated discharge date. The team provides services like physiotherapy or assisted living in order to get the patient home faster.

Lori Shkopich, clinical resources nurse at the Meadow Lake Hospital said statistics from March 2014 indicated an average hospital stay was 25 days.

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“Now, March of 2016, our stats have decreased to just over 16 days in hospital. So a decrease of over 8.88 days,” Shkopich said.

After a successful trial in Meadow Lake, the Prairie North Health Region said they are looking at implementing the discharge process in the Battlefords Hospital as well.

cswiderski@jpbg.ca

On twitter: @coltonswiderski