Lessening the overcrowding in Ontario hospitals is the aim of a new project at Trenton hospital.
Trenton was chosen because health officials have noted patients are staying in the hospital too long after their illness has been resolved before moving to a nursing or retirement home, or going home with support services in place.
The idea is to find out why and fix the problem.
"There must be something we can do differently," Katherine Stansfield, Quinte Health Care's vice-president of patient services and chief nursing officer, said Wednesday.
Discharged elderly patients and their families will be asked what hurdles they faced in going from hospital to other accommodations, she said.
"This is a process that can be extremely long," Stansfield said.
For example, sometimes the elderly patient and family will give similar information 12 times to five different health-care representatives, she said.
The idea is to reduce that to one.
During February to the end of April, hospital staff will also be interviewed for ideas on how to solve the logjam, she said.
On average, 14 per cent of provincial hospital beds are filled with so-called Alternate Level of Care patients - predominately elderly with no place to go. Trenton's 70 beds are sometimes filled with nearly three times that number, said QHC spokeswoman Susan Rowe.
"As of Feb. 7, there were 27 ALC patients at Trenton Memorial, which as a per cent is 38.6," she said Wednesday.
The project is called the "Having their say and choosing their way: helping patients and caregivers move from hospital to home."
It was conceived and is funded by the Change Foundation, a Toronto-based Ontario Hospital Association think tank, and the Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres.
The two information gathering people in Trenton are from the Change Foundation. After completing their fact-finding here at the end of April, the project will move to a hospital in the Greater Toronto Area, Stansfield said.
A third site in Ontario has not yet been chosen, she said.
The project is slated to last a year, but Stansfield said if the researchers find something that could immediately speed up the discharge to other accommodation process, they will tell QHC officials who will enact the change.
The project has the blessing and co-operation of the South East Local Health Integration Network, said Paul Huras, chief executive officer of the SE LHIN.
It is the latest in a string of initiatives designed to move the elderly out of hospital quicker, or to divert people to other care facilities, if warranted.
Article ID# 904730
