Hospital set for more than makeover | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

Things will be done differently when Masterton's new hospital opens in March 2006, according to Wairarapa DHB CEO David Meates.

"Approval for the new hospital was not just for a new building," said Mr Meates.

"It was for the whole package of improvements. If we just move old ways into new buildings, we'll end up back where we started, with services that are under threat. We've promised to build services, not cut them. We knew the new hospital would give us a unique opportunity to look at the systems and processes that support excellent patient care, without the barriers of poor or outdated facility design."

In the past, Masterton Hospital has taken a fragmented approach to developing services. New services were located in the most available and easily adaptable space at the time.

Once the location had been decided, staff and patients just had to fit around it. Some services were far apart, or not in the logical place for patient flows.

Small isolated departments were at risk if just one key staff member was sick or left.

"This will not be repeated in the new hospital," says Mr Meates. "The new development provides the opportunity to rethink the roles our staff have and the way they do their work."

"A patient's journey through to hospital admission, treatment and discharge has many layers. Communication processes, administration or paper work processes often involve many different departments. It is no wonder that the journey is not always as efficient as it could be."

"Staff and management are working to streamline both our processes and the patient's journey, to ensure that we fulfil our promise of an improved and expanded range of health services in the Wairarapa. This will inevitably mean some new and different roles, and some changes in the way we do things," says Mr Meates.

"The target date of March 2006 to open the new hospital means we will be moving quite quickly, and will see some significant changes happen in what seems to be a short timeframe. The buildings may be the only part that the public sees, but behind that we are committed to creating a 'best practice' facility based on sound, evidence based practice."