Humber River Hospital: A New Vision For Canadian Care
The new Humber River Hospital is on schedule to open its doors to patients in Toronto in 2015. Healthcare Global takes a look inside the new hospital, which could change healthcare provision in Canada for the better – setting an industry standard for future builds by leading care with innovation and technology.
Come 2015, patients at the Humber River Hospital will be able to change their room temperature, control the lighting, video chat with their nurses and read their medical records on a bedside monitor.
“The control of their environment and the participation in their care” will be the biggest changes for a patient entering the fully digital, 656-bed hospital, Barb Collins, Humber River's CEO and lead of the redevelopment project told CBC News.
Collins said that the build methods and innovative technology employed during the construction and planning process of the hospital was aimed at cutting down on ‘sneaker time’ - the amount of time nurses and doctors spend walking to different parts of the hospital to deliver care. The hospital is located in northwest Toronto and will replace three existing sites as Humber's main acute care centre.
Utilising Video Link
The majority of patients at the Humber River Hospital will be accommodated in single-bed rooms and will communicate directly with nurses via video link. Nurses will also no longer record blood pressure, temperature and other vital signs on paper and have to transfer them to a patient's chart, instead all results will be automatically communicated from the device to the electronic medical chart.
A More Efficient Supply Chain
The way supplies move throughout the hospital will also be more efficient. Food, medicine, waste, linen and other items will be transported around the hospital through a system of chutes and automated guided vehicles.
Canadian healthcare institutions have been slow to adopt digital working, however the new Humber River Hospital sets the benchmark for hospitals in the future and will change the way patient care is delivered in Canada.
