New discharge lounge puts patient experience first

24 July 2015

New discharge lounge puts patient experience first

Waitemata District Health Board (DHB) has today opened a new purpose-built patient discharge lounge on the ground floor of North Shore Hospital.

Equipped with 24 chairs for patients and visitors and three beds, the new lounge has been custom designed to comfortably accommodate patients with a variety of needs in the immediate time before they leave the hospital.

The lounge provides a spacious, modern, clinically-supervised environment with an improved lay-out for patients, families and staff. The design includes several separate areas to enhance patient comfort and privacy.

Waitemata DHB chief executive Dr Dale Bramley says the discharge lounge is just one of the many initiatives we’re undertaking to make the environments in our hospitals and community facilities more welcoming for the people we serve.

“The new lounge is the most recent project in our extensive, organisation-wide programme to enhance patient experience by looking at our services and environments from the perspective of those who use them.

“Our aim is for patients to experience a consistent, high quality of care throughout their hospital journey from the moment they enter our doors right up until the time of discharge,” says Dr Bramley.

The previous discharge lounge shared space with the short-stay ward and was not suitable to accommodate patients with some specific requirements. The new facility remedies this, as well as freeing-up four additional beds in the short–stay ward.

The discharge lounge is accessible from North Shore Hospital’s Entrance 2 and will operate Monday to Friday 9.00am – 5.30pm.

Other patient experience-focused initiatives include the completion of a series of eight family rooms in the wards at North Shore Hospital, the introduction of protected meal times to prevent patients being interrupted by clinical staff during their meals, and the roll-out of wifi across DHB sites giving patients and their whānau access to free high-speed internet.

Waitemata DHB this week won the Justice Sector award for Excellence in Integrity and Trust at the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand (IPANZ) awards for its extensive work linking patient experience to the organisation’s values.

ENDS

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