A second round of the Release Time to Care program that was implemented in the Sun Country Health Region over a year ago, is now rolling out at St. Joseph's Hospital in Estevan.
This time the efficiency focused project will involve personnel from the emergency ward as well as the obstetrics and obstectrical surgery ward.
A six-person team will soon be departing St. Joe's for Saskatoon to enter a two-day training program that will allow them to return to the hospital as trainers to introduce the program highlights to other staff members on these two wards.
Last year Ward A, including the intensive care unit at St. Joseph's, was introduced to the program.
Renee Goulet, a registered nurse and nurse manager for the obstetrical unit, will be the leader of their three-person team while Tara Daoust, a registered nurse in the operating room and emergency room will head up the other Estevan hospital team that will receive the initial training. Goulet will also be taking Mona Hack and Tracey DeWald with her while Daoust is teaming up with Tara Shier and Heather Schoenthal to complete the six-person team that will learn to be the trainers.
"It's really a never ending program since it includes continual input of personnel," said Goulet, noting that there will be professional people coming and going from the Release Time to Care project over the years since it not only involves nurses but also maintenance, cleaning staff, licensed practical nurses (LPN), and physicians too, just to name a few of the other team members.
Each ward will have slightly differing priorities, but the end result is to make each unit in the hospital more effective and efficient which will allow nurses to spend more time bedside and less time on unnecessary paperwork or searching for equipment and materials.
"Getting others to buy into the program is part of the training we'll receive," said Goulet.
She said in the ward she oversees, there are some obvious areas that can be made more efficient by simply introducing new practices, including a floor layout plan.
"We'll first have to know how we're doing now (baseline) and then identify the areas that require scrutiny and correction," she said.
With the current physician shortages in Estevan, Goulet said it might prove to be a bit more challenging to implement the program. Having doctors finding time to sit down and learn the concepts of the project is one important segment, and with their time being stretched now, it could provide some challenges.
The obstetrical unit (maternity) ward is still providing birthing services with Dr. Di Naidu still available for that service for another month and with new doctors arriving soon who have skills in that particular area as well as anesthetics, Goulet said she hopes that they will be able to continue to provide this badly needed service to the community.
"We have five full-time RNs and 10 LPNs on our ward alone, and the Release Time to Care project will include anyone else who comes in on the shift, maintenance, laundry, dietary, physio, etc," she said.
The training for the original six in Saskatoon will begin September 13.
"When we return to do the training here, we'll know that we also have back-up assistance that we can call on through the education co-ordinator at Sun Country, the team on Ward A who have already received training and Mary Ann Veroba, the director of patient care. They are all prepared to help out or serve as reference," said Goulet.
"The whole thing is geared to putting us (nurses) back to the bedsides by making things more efficient and making the patient the centre of the care package," Goulet said in conclusion.
