17 November 2011

Tauranga Hospital To Open Transit Lounge

The Bay of Plenty District Health Board has opened a transit lounge at Tauranga Hospital for patients awaiting final discharge paperwork or transport home.

Phillip Balmer, Chief Operating Officer of the Bay of Plenty District Health Board says that the hospital needs to look at, and commit to new ways, of doing things to meet the needs of a growing and aging population.

“Tauranga hospital continues to grow the range and volume of services. We therefore need to constantly evaluate how we can improve the way we do things to improve patient care within the resources available. Introducing the transit lounge is a case of doing things differently to meet those growing needs.” says Mr. Balmer.

“We have a timing issue between the arrival of our patients in the Emergency Department (ED) and the availability of beds in the hospital.” says Mr. Balmer

Peak ED presentations at Tauranga Hospital occur at 10 am, while most of the hospital’s discharges occur at 3 pm. This means that the beds are sometimes not available for patients to be admitted into in a timely way.

Mr Balmer adds “to address this problem we are planning to open a transit lounge so that the beds of those ready to go home but waiting for paperwork or prescriptions, for example, can be freed up much earlier for new patients coming in,” says Mr Balmer

The Transit Lounge will provide a place for patients who are waiting to be discharged from hospital, or are waiting for family to pick them up and is staffed by a Registered Nurse.,

The new transit lounge is opening on 21 November 2011. It is located on the first floor of Tauranga hospital, in ward 1D.

The lounge can accommodate up to 20 people in chairs rather than beds, with food and tea/coffee available to patients while they are waiting. Family and friends will be notified if their family member has been transferred to the transit lounge.

-ENDS-