The new Lakes District Hospital and Health Centre has been opened for over three months, and Lakes District News wanted to find out what makes this state-of-the-art facility unique. This four-page spread will work as a virtual tour for people that haven’t seen the new hospital yet.
The two-storey disaster-proof building has approximately 6100 square metres (65,000 square feet). The new hospital features 16 beds, including 13 acute care beds, one isolation room, one palliative care room and one labour/delivery/recovery site.
The building has the capacity to replace its air every nine minutes, as well as the capacity to filter and re-circulate indoor air if necessary. In the event of an extremely low air quality, it’s estimated that the hospital could completely block outside air and function normally for a full day, thanks to its modern recirculation system.
“This will be helpful if there is poor air quality due to dust or other sources,” explained Jonathon Dyck, Spokesperson for Northern Health.
The new centre provides acute care and emergency services, diagnostic imaging, lab services and pharmacy. A medical clinic offers primary, outpatient and acute care, along with the delivery of mental health and addictions and public health, as well as home- and community-care services.
Every patient room has one bed only, which keeps contamination risks to a minimum. Each room has a TV, a telephone and a private bathroom.
The new hospital is also green and energy-efficient. In fact, the facility is designed to achieve leadership in energy and environmental gold certification.
Some of the sustainable features that contribute to its energy efficiency include a low pressure drop duct design to reduce fan power and energy requirements, as well as demand-based pressure and temperature optimization strategies. Features also includes low flow plumbing fixtures for water savings, as well as heat recovery strategies such as exhaust air heat recovery and heat recovery chillers.
Another important feature of the new hospital is the decontamination room. The room is strategically located to allow access directly from the ambulance bay, ensuring patients can receive the treatment they may require before entering the facility. The decontamination room is important for the safety of patients, staff and physicians that may have been dealing with chemicals and materials that are hazardous.
Within the decontamination room is a specialty emergency drench shower and eyewash station that provides the ability for complete wash-down using tempered potable water. A special floor drain and holding tank are located in the room as well, so all contaminated water gets hauled away. Once wash-down and cleanup is complete, there is an entrance from the decontamination room into the hospital by the main nurse station.
An entire section of the hospital is known as the primary care section. It includes video conferencing so that doctors can communicate with other doctors, patients can communicate with specialists in other municipalities, and hospital administration can have meetings. According to Northern Health, videoconferencing allows patients to save money on travels to see other doctors, as well as it saves money for hospital administration.