Posted at 5:00 a.m.
On the second floor of the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, a dozen experts are seated in front of their computers. In front of them, video screens display real-time data on the condition and situation of patients. It is there, in this unique command center in Canada, that they control the activities of the 34 facilities of the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. A project for the future that Quebec wishes to implement throughout the province.
“Entering the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that we had different issues, such as the accessibility of beds. We started talking about a command center that was going to manage hospital fluidity, ”explains to The Press the deputy director general of the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, Dan Gabay.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Dan Gabay, Deputy Director General of the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal
A few months later, the center was taking shape. A single glance at the dashboards is necessary to be aware of the number of occupied beds in the hospital and in the community network. Data on the average length of stay or on the waiting time in the emergency room are also displayed there. You can even follow the heart rate of patients at home.
Through these screens, the team can follow the flow of hospitalized patients, so that beds are available for new arrivals. It can also prevent unnecessary delays in patient discharge, freeing up beds for those who really need them.
“The goal is to find the best place for the patient to receive the care he needs,” says Erin Cook, Deputy Director, Department of Quality, Innovation, Evaluation, Performance and Ethics at the CIUSSS.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Erin Cook, Deputy Director, Department of Quality, Innovation, Evaluation, Performance and Ethics, CIUSSS
An idea that the Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, said he wanted to implement in each hospital to allow more fluid management of beds and reduce waiting times in the emergency room, on the sidelines of the presentation of the “refoundation” plan. of the health network.
Improve quality of life
The command center team quickly takes action as soon as non-standard indicators are detected in the network. “This morning, for example, we saw about ten psychiatric patients on the dashboard. We made calls to doctors to better understand the situation and see if there is a possibility of transferring patients elsewhere, ”illustrates M.me Cook. Thanks to the work of the team, two patients were transferred to another department within minutes.
In addition to monitoring the activities of the Jewish General Hospital, the center monitors the activities of five long-term care centers, three rehabilitation centers, several CLSCs and other CIUSSS facilities. He also follows patients at home, a project set up during the fifth wave of the pandemic.
From now on, we are able to remotely monitor our patients.
Erin Cook, Deputy Director, Department of Quality, Innovation, Evaluation, Performance and Ethics, CIUSSS
In front of Mme Cook, the patients’ vital signs scroll across a screen. The command center tracks their health in real time through a sensor worn on the skin. The quality of life of patients is greatly improved. “For a patient, being at home, in a known environment, but being supported by nurses, doctors and pharmacists and being monitored continuously, is very reassuring,” says Mr. Gabay.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Sensor worn on the skin
Mme Cook rubbed shoulders with a mother who was hospitalized for two weeks at home. “She was so happy to have her three children back. It was a very beautiful story,” she recalls.
“It’s a very good progress”
The results of the command center are already being felt. Since its inauguration a little over a year ago, emergency room waiting times have fallen from 33 to 23 hours. “It’s a very good progress”, rejoices Mr. Gabay.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Command Center at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal
In addition, waiting times for admission to the departments of medicine, surgery, psychiatry and geriatrics have also decreased.
Moving three or four patients a day allows us to obtain significant gains.
Dan Gabay, Deputy Director General of the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal
It is also the transfer of patients to more appropriate resources that is done more efficiently. “Before the command center, we could have had 18 emergency admissions waiting for psychiatry. Now we have between 5 and 10 patients, ”says the deputy director.
He hopes that command centers will soon be established throughout the province. “All our centers will be able to interconnect, so that will speed up exchanges between establishments,” he concludes.