Bright, spacious and with room to grow – welcome to LGH’s new Outpatient Care Centre
Bright, spacious and with room to grow. Welcome to the new Outpatient Care Centre (OCC) at Lions Gate Hospital. It’s expected that at least 20,000 people a year will receive vital health services in the new centre, which can now offer a more patient-focused experience in a custom-designed area.
“We have tripled the number of exam/consult spaces from the old design, which means physicians can see more patients in an efficient manner,” says Barb Ferreira, Program Manager, Ambulatory Care & Clinical Support. “The location of the OCC is attached to Registration Services (Admitting) so patients have less distance to walk to clinics after check-in. The new floor plan also allows patients to wait just outside the OCC, which affords greater confidentiality in the exam room areas. We also designed the space with room to grow so we can include new future services, such as Rapid Access Neurology, which will start this fall.”
The space has also been designed to support the Cerner implementation that is part of CST.
The OCC welcomed its first clients this week who came for the following services:
- Pre-Anesthesia Clinic – Of the more than 15,600 surgeries performed at LGH each year, more than 8,000 of these surgical patients are seen in the Pre-Anesthesia Clinic.
- Joint Replacement Access Clinic (JRAC) – LGH is a national leader in joint replacement surgeries. Last year, more than 1,100 people were seen in JRAC. To date, the JRAC team has screened and optimized more than 8,000 joint replacement patients for their upcoming surgery.
- Rapid Access Spinal Clinic (RASC) – A vital referral centre for patients suffering acute and chronic back pain, the clinic sees 40-50 patients a week. So far this year, 1,236 people were seen in RASC.
- Medical Daycare Infusion Clinic (4 care spaces) – This clinic supports infectious disease screening for appropriate antibiotics in the mornings and iron and blood transfusions in the afternoon.
*Respiratory Services will relocate to the OCC in mid-September.
OCC history
Forty years ago, none of the services housed in the Outpatient Care Centre existed. It was only as these clinics evolved that LGH developed a way to adapt existing spaces to this purpose. The increase in demand for these vital services pushed the facility beyond capacity and inspired the LGH Foundation to kick off the LGH Now Campaign.
Generous donors to the LGH Now campaign raised $8.5 million that paved the way for the OCC as well as the hospital’s new Sacred Space/Chapel, new Foundation offices and the Atrium Renewal Project, which is currently in progress and expected to be completed by late fall 2018.
“I am very grateful to the Foundation for their support,” says Barb.
Barb Ferreira, Program Manager, Ambulatory Care & Clinical Support.
“This project has also been well supported by the Senior Leadership Team, the Coastal Project Management Office, particularly Andrew Tung, and Project Manager Howard Leung from Lower Mainland Facilities Management. I also want to thank my OCC team for their patience and support over the last year when we moved to our temporary locations on the second floor. ”
Happy staff
Equally delighted with the new space is receptionist Teresa Routledge, who is the first point of contact for OCC clients.
“We are very happy to be in our beautiful new space,” says Teresa. “The staff are enjoying the bright environment and generous work space with great ergonomic new desks. The new layout will allow the staff to work in close proximity to ensure each patient has a smooth and seamless visit and less movement from area to area. And we are thrilled to have our own kitchen and break room.”
The quiet of the new Outpatient Care Centre before the arrival of patients this past Tuesday.