North Bay General goes co-ed

The new North Bay Regional Health Centre will place patients of the opposite sex in the same acute care in-patient hospital room to reduce wait times and unnecessary room transfers.

"The ability to place patients in co-ed rooms will help us reduce the time patients are on stretchers waiting for a room to become available, which can be very uncomfortable," said Nancy Jacko, vice-president, medicine care centre.

Balancing the need to transfer patients for infection control reasons, patient conditions or preferred accommodation requests along with trying to keep male and female patients in separate rooms can result in multiple transfers and unnecessary movement of patients.

"Many patients, especially elderly ones, can become disoriented after a number of room transfers. Changing locations multiple times also increases the risk of misplacing personal items, and room transfers off the unit means the patient will have an entirely new care team," Jacko explained.

Traditionally, the hospital has worked to keep male and female patients apart. Tiziana Silveri, vice-president, surgery and women and children care centres, said patient transfers use up nursing time that could be spent providing patient care. "(Segregating male and female patients) can also delay transfers out of the operating room, emergency department and critical care unit," she said.

Semi-private rooms at the new health centre are designed to provide patients with considerable privacy. Patients are located on opposite sides of the room with a bathroom in-between the two beds, which is one reason why hospital staff is confident this new practice will work.