This rehearsal could be a lifesaver
At the soon-to-open Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, mock scenarios such as admitting a patient from a long-term-care home with a COVID outbreak are helping staff finalize procedures. ‘We were looking for failures, and when we found them, we celebrated them’
At first glance, nothing seems out of the ordinary in this busy corner of a hospital emergency department.
A patient lies on a stretcher, eyes closed, a monitor tracking vital signs. Two nurses work nearby, one typing at a computer, the other listening with a stethoscope to the patient’s chest. A physician steps into the room with a smile and assurances he can help.
But then there is a prolonged pause, some nervous laughs and the action stops. Several people clustered in the hallway check clipboards before explaining the next steps in the detailed sequence. Seconds later, the nurses and physician are again bustling at the patient’s bedside.
Staff here at the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital are 20 minutes in to a 2- 1⁄2- hour mock scenario to test medical protocols and procedures ahead of the hospital opening its doors to patients in early 2021.
Construction on the long-awaited hospital, located near Canada’s Wonderland and a part of Mackenzie Health, was completed at the end of August.
Now, as the 11-storey building gets its final touches, staff are trying out patient monitoring devices, practising workflows, logging in to new computers and running through all the many “what-ifs” to ensure they can safely deliver care in the new building.
“We’ll be doing many dress rehearsals, right up until we open, making sure that every single piece of equipment, every single piece of technology and all of our staff are ready to go,” said Mary-Agnes Wilson, Mackenzie Health’s executive vice-president, chief operating officer and chief nursing executive.
“We are testing and testing, and training and training until we get it all right.”
This mock scenario — one of four that took place during a week in mid-November — starts in the ambulance bay of the hospital’s Magna emergency department.
It follows a patient, an 84-year-old male named Henry, who has fallen at his long-term-care home and comes to hospital in an ambulance with a suspected hip fracture. He has dementia and staff at the home, which has an outbreak of COVID-19, say he has symptoms of the virus, which triggers infection-prevention protocols that must be followed at each point of his hospital stay.
The 76-step scenario tracks the patient from his private room in the emergency department to medical imaging for a hip X-ray to an operating suite for surgery to the critical care unit, where he will recover in a negative-pressure isolation room