The new Discharge Lounge at Erie Shores HealthCare is the first of its kind in Ontario and gives patients and staff some relief from the usual time-sensitive pressures of operating a rural community hospital.
The Discharge Lounge is nestled in the hospital’s Admission Discharge Unit (ADU), which was opened about a year ago.
“The ADU is a patient-focused operational model that strengthens flow and helps with safely managing our demand,” said Erie Shores President and CEO Kristin Kennedy. “Since this opened over a year ago, we’ve been able to reduce the amount of ‘bed idle’ time a person stays in our hospital by over seven hours.”
When a patient is set to be discharged from the hospital, there is often a wait of a couple hours while prescriptions, transportation and paperwork are finalized. This leaves patients in their beds while they await these things and their final release.
Now, patients can be sent to the Discharge Lounge and the bed freed up for patients waiting for in-patient beds, which trickles down to the Emergency Department, freeing up space there as well.
There are nine comfortable recliners with side tables in the well-appointed and newly renovated lounge, complete with a big screen TV.
Penny Bellhouse, CEO of the Erie Shores Health Foundation, was on hand for the opening and said she was impressed by the new lounge and grateful to the community for their support.
“This space represents a new idea that will impress upon our patients here,” she said. “This doesn’t happen without our communities. Thank you so much. We wouldn’t be able to fund these spaces without you.”
In addition to the opening of the Discharge Lounge, CEO Kennedy — along with local MPPs — announced that the provincial government has committed an additional $2.33 million in base funding to Erie Shores HealthCare annually.
“While the funding announced today is not specifically just for the ADU, we’ve had very productive discussions with the province about the unit and how we will be partnering with Ontario to unlock permanent funding that matches this impact,” she said. “But it certainly helps and it keeps our ability to keep it operational alive.”
Essex MPP Anthony Leardi, who is also the Parliamentary Assistant for Ontario’s Minister of Health, said the province is committed to keeping the hospital in operation and at full capacity.
“I am very impressed at what Kristin Kennedy and her remarkable team have done here,” he said. “Let’s keep it going and it will become the model for everybody else to follow.”
MPP (and Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agri-Business) Trevor Jones could not be at the announcement, but sent remarks through his Executive Assistant, Nammar Cristofari.
“The opening of the newly renovated Discharge Lounge is a great example of how patient-centered improvements can have a real and immediate impact,” she said. “This space provides patients who are ready to go home with a calm, comfortable and private setting while awaiting transportation or final arrangements.”
Warden MacDonald — also the Mayor of Leamington — was thrilled with the addition to the hospital.
“My words are really just thank you,” she said. “We’re so grateful to have this hospital in our community. It means that the quality of life for the people that live here stays top notch. That ‘Care Close To Home’ tagline is exactly what people are looking for.”
