Municipalities must prepare for Niagara Health’s big change in 2028, CEO says
Medical staff to learn new operational practices and team cultures before hospital opening
Changes will take effect at local hospitals long before Niagara Health’s plans for a three-site model become a reality in 2028.
While construction of the new hospital in Niagara Falls continues, Niagara Health president and chief executive officer Lynn Guerriero said hospital system is building its staffing strategy.
“There’s so much going on … There are a lot of moving pieces, so it’s really important for us to change those operational practices and the team cultures, years before the change,” she said.
“We can’t have people show up on that opening day and just be, ‘Oh this is my new team and this is my new equipment.’ ”
Guerriero said medical staff who will work together at the new hospital are now spread out among various hospital sites; and “they need to start functioning as a single team, so they’ve known each other and they know what they’re doing as a team, well in advance of the doors opening.”
Although some patient bed transfers are underway, Guerriero said that’s related to consolidating beds added during the pandemic, rather than a move related to the hospital system’s long-term plans.
“We had over 100 beds that we opened during the pandemic,” she said.
“We were lucky enough to keep almost all of them.”
Guerriero said those beds were deemed temporary at the time and located wherever space was available. However, now that all but seven of them are permanent, the hospital system is relocating many of them to enhance efficiency.
“We are consolidating our complex-care beds because they were all over the place, and we need more surgical beds in Niagara Falls,” she said.
Guerriero said a new modernized health information system is another change being implemented this fall. It has to be running smoothly by the time the new hospital opens, with “all the bugs out and completely implemented.”
“That takes years for teams to get used to using a new system and getting all the value out of that.”
Guerriero said other changes need to be made by local municipalities and other levels of government.
For example, Niagara Health’s plans include a transit hub at the site of the new Niagara Falls hospital “to make sure we can handle and accommodate the buses,” but she said it will be up to Niagara Region Transit to ensure buses arrive there.
Guerriero said residents’ concerns about getting to hospitals during winter storms need to be addressed by municipalities, too.
“We can’t design a hospital system around the weather, but we certainly would expect the municipalities and the Region and the province are making sure there is safe transit available, or safe driving conditions available for people when they need to travel,” she said.
Guerriero said paramedics also play a vital role in getting patients to the hospital, regardless of the weather.
“There are things that people should be doing to advocate strongly for things like proper highways and transit, that’s not something the hospital necessarily has control over, nor can we stop the modernization of our health-care system because we’re worried about the highways,” she said.
“We have to keep going and hope that the people who are accountable for those things are doing what they need to do.”