Thousands of people access emergency medical care at Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) every year, but now the emergency room (ER) will get some much-needed care of its own.
“Hopefully that translates into patients having a more seamless care journey in the emergency, getting kind of more efficiently brought into the department,” said Dr. Jared Baylis, an ER physician and the department’s medical director.
The KGH Foundation is about to launch a $2.5 million fundraising campaign to enhance emergency care in the Interior’s largest hospital.
“We’re all feeling kind of energized and excited about this,” Baylis said.
Called Give Where It Matters Most, the campaign is the last piece of the broader $40 million Closer To Home campaign.
It involves targeted improvements identified by medical teams and Interior Health (IH).
“This is a very big need for us and has been identified as a site priority for a while,” said Lindsay Taberner, KGH executive director of clinical operations.
The improvements will include redesigning patient registration and expanding triage capacity to help reduce wait times.
“If we have more ability and more space to triage patients, that will improve the triage time,” Taberner said. “So improved time to assessment and then time to result and time to treatment.”
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The redesigned space will also improve sightlines, allowing for better monitoring of vulnerable patients.
“I think triage is known to (be) a bit of a danger zone, because that’s the point where somebody’s come in seeking care but they haven’t yet been assessed or treated for what they’re coming in for,” Baylis said.
“And if wait times are starting to balloon, then people are in the waiting room for longer and longer and things can happen while they’re waiting.”
The funds will also support new diagnostic equipment including two mobile ultrasounds and a dedicated ER ECG and lab area, which Baylis said will help streamline the treatment process.
“Right now there can be some confusion about what happens next for patients. So they come in, they get triaged. Are they going to see the doctor next? Are they going for lab tests next? Are they going for an X-ray?” he said.
“It’s a little bit of a confusing journey, so we’re hoping to streamline that and just have it all happen in a more sequential way.”
According to IH, there were more than 101,000 patient visits to the KGH ER last year alone, making it second-busiest emergency room in the province.
As the region continues to grow, those patient numbers will continue increasing and put more strain on an already challenging staffing situation.
“We are continually recruiting, we are continually addressing need and demand,” Taberner said.
Work on the upgrades is expected to begin later this year and be completed by fall 2027.
For more information on the campaign or to donate, click on the KGH Foundation website.
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