By MARTIN JOHNSTON, Health reporter
North Shore Hospital staff are looking forward to better, safer facilities for patients in a new $8 million emergency care centre.
But they also worry that, like Middlemore Hospital's new emergency centre which opened last year, it may attract a big increase in patients.
From 4 am tomorrow,
patients will be shifted into the new centre, which is part of the $60 million re-development of the 17-year-old North Shore Hospital.
The emergency centre, in the former administration area on the hospital's ground floor, combines the existing emergency department and the acute assessment ward, and will house New Zealand's first emergency medicine research unit.
The new centre will have 53 beds, compared with 45 now.
Combining the department and ward is expected to increase patient safety, partly because medical teams will not have to shuttle between separate floors.
The emergency department's clinical director, Dr Garry Clearwater, said yesterday that he and his staff were excited about the changes, but were also concerned.
"We're aware of what happened at Middlemore, where they had a fantastic new facility and ended up getting a dramatic increase in workload at the same time."
Dr Clearwater said his department saw around 45,000 patients a year and the proportion who were in the sickest category had increased.
Last winter, the department was often swamped with patients waiting to be admitted to other parts of the hospital.
A zone has also been created for patients with chest pain and shortness of breath so they can be quickly assessed to see if they are suffering heart attacks.
High-risk patients will be hooked up to a continous electronic monitoring device.
This will display their pulse, heart rhythm and blood pressure on a screen at the centre's central staff station, as well as at their bedsides.
In 2004, the centre will start treating patients suffering major trauma.
At about the same time, a new Waitakere general hospital and emergency department will open.
