Visitors Tour the New Wing

On the morning of Thursday, August 6, before our executive meeting, chapter Vice President Len Talalai gathered the Mended Hearts visitors - members who visit heart patients in the hospital - to show them where they will visit patients in the new building at Jersey Shore University Medical Center. Your editor is not a visitor but went along to report.

The tour was led by Kathy Armstrong, R.N., nurse manager on Mehandru 6, for post-op heart patients after ICU. It was scheduled to move to “garden” in the new Northwest Pavilion 2 the following Monday. So we went to the second floor in the new building.

To begin with, we were “on stage” where patients walk out and friends and families come to visit. The elevators on stage are intentionally too small for stretchers and service carts, which go on the offstage elevators. Volunteers are “team members,” so we practiced using our proximity badges to open the doors to go backstage.

Backstage Kathy showed us the satellite pharmacy on 2 for the whole building, the all-purpose room for the floor, “lounges” (waiting rooms), conference rooms, “nourishment areas” (pantries) and the patient rooms. Each floor has three neighborhoods designated as “sky,” “garden” and “water,” each with twelve private rooms - 36 patients on each floor. The doors have glass panels, they stay closed for quiet, and a curtain covers the door when privacy is needed. Big windows let in light. Rooms have Internet access and the phone and keyboard can control the TV.

Kathy also told the visitors about new procedures. Patient’ names will no longer be displayed where everyone can see them, but they can be shown on a screen and visitors can get a printout. The classes Bill and Len hold (see page 10) might be replaced by TV.

It’s not just a new building. It’s an open door to new ways of interacting with patients. Not all the innovations are in place; there’s room for invention.