Ellis Hospital highlighted its recent changes during an open house at the three campuses throughout Schenectady County.
The hospital, which was forced to merge with St. Clare’s Hospital and Bellevue Woman’s Hospital as a result of a state mandate, took residents around the building and explained some of the new technology and recent updates.
Hundreds of residents visited the three Ellis Hospital campuses Sunday, Sept. 14, to view the facilities and reacquaint themselves with the new services.
We’re very excited to open up to the public, said Wendy Rosher, vice president of clinical services.
She said the open house, is a celebration of the hospitals’ consolidation with St. Clare’s, on McClellan Street in Schenectady, and Bellevue, on Route 7 in Niskayuna. Although Bellevue was supposed to close under the recommendations from the state Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century, also known as the Berger Commission, Ellis decided to continue services at the Bellevue Woman’s Health Care Center.
`Today is about celebrating and showing the public that we are here for them,` Rosher said.
Several patients criticized the hospital, saying they experienced long wait times in the emergency room.
`We are working to improve the wait time at the emergency room,` Rosher said. She said the hospital has added beds to cut back on wait times.
A spokeswoman for the hospital, Donna Evans, said they added 12 new beds to the emergency department this summer. She also noted that the emergency department is under construction, and will be adding about seven new beds for emergency room patients.
When construction is complete, Evans said, `We will have doubled our emergency department.`
Another way the hospital is working to cut down on wait times is in the way they triage patients, moving them more quickly into their rooms.
`Were not taking away from any patient spaces,` said Lynne Guarneri, office manager of nurse staffing, on the expansion of the emergency room. She said the hospital revamped the X-ray department and removed a records room to expand the emergency department.
In addition to the upgrades in the emergency department, the tour of Ellis Hospital, located on Nott Street in Schenectady, gave a comprehensive look at the hospital’s facilities, which include a new intensive care unit, and equipment, including a 64-Slice CT Scanner.
During the tour, guests were able to see the scanner, which looks for blocked vessels by providing a three-dimensional view of the body, allowing radiologists to conduct balloon studies or place stents in the vessels, according to Director of Radiology Bill Doak.
The new scanner cost $1.7 million, and renovations to the radiology department to accommodate the scanner and add a waiting space cost $2.8 million, according to Doak.
The new ICU wing is two floors with 18 beds on each floor. One floor is a medical ICU with a focus on neurology while the other floor is a surgical ICU concentrating on cardiac cases.
Guarneri said each ICU room is staffed with two nurses and that the waiting room has showers, computers and televisions for hospital visitors who are staying with family for extended periods.
`It’s a very comfortable setting,` Guarneri said. The ICU wing opened two years ago and has the potential to grow upward, she said.
Also unique to Ellis Hospital is the Leibers Contemplation Room, which offers views of Schenectady where a patient or family member can seek some peace and quiet.
The room is named for an Ellis Hospital Board of Trustees member Robert M. Leibers, who has served on the board since 1997.
Guests to the hospital were also able to view a computerized prescription dispenser, which is used by nurses to determine the drug, dose and time of day a patient receives his or her medication.
Since the merger with St. Clare’s became official in June, the hospital has been working to organize its services across the two campuses.
St. Clare’s is mainly used for outpatient services, however, Evans said they still have a fully operation emergency department, which is open 24/7.
Some of the outpatient services included in St. Clare’s are medical imaging, a wound care center, a sleep disorder clinic, primary care and pediatric care, as well as a dental care center.
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