Planning continues for Leader Integrated Health Facility

The Leader Hospital and Primary Health Care Clinic saw some increased activity on December 8-10, as staff members from Leader and the Cypress Health Region were involved in following patients as they moved through their specific care experiences. This ‘ value stream mapping’ exercise will provide important information to be used in the future planning and design of the new integrated health facility in the community.

Value stream mapping allows the staff teams to identify and capture the current experiences of patients through a specific care experience. During these three days, staff followed patient appointments at the Primary Health Care Clinic and patient visits to the Hospital’s lab and x-ray department, emergency outpatient service, and therapies service. Each process step in the individual patient experience was timed and mapped to identify where patients are waiting or walking to receive their service.

“The information collected during this exercise was very beneficial to determine what the current processes are for patients who are accessing these services,” commented Brenda Schwan, Executive Director of Human Resources and Capital Lead for the Cypress Health Region. “It will be utilized as baseline information as we continue to plan the new integrated facility in future designrelated events.”

The mapping exercise was one of the initial phases that will take place in the planning for the capital project that will see the construction of an addition to the existing Western Senior Citizens Home. The next step in the planning will be a 3P event in early January where staff, patient/family representatives, and other members of the design team will continue developing the blueprint for the new integrated facility.

“The 3P team will use the timings and patient flows from this week to identify different design options that will eliminate the waits and unnecessary travel distances for our patients,” added Schwan. “One obvious example of this will be the reduced distance between the primary health care clinic providers and the laboratory for follow-up testing, due to all of our services being under one roof.”

All of the information gathered from the value stream mapping week will be used in the 3P event which will be held from January 5 to 9, 2015. One of the major objectives will be to ensure that the facility’s design will maximize the patient flows and make additional improvements to make the patient experience even more valuable to them.

The 3P event will serve as an opportunity to revisit the functional planning and initial design work that was completed three years ago by staff and community members.

“We are looking forward to the next event in January,” said Michele Garrett, a member of Leader’s Emergency Medical Services team and a participant in the value stream mapping exercise. “There are many benefits of taking a close look at how we currently provide care to our patients, and how we can make small changes to provide an even better care experience for them.”

Construction on the new integrated facility is anticipated to begin in the fall of 2015 and is expected to open its doors in the fall of 2016.