Administration and staff at Mercy Hospital of Tiffin have been working to equip their new location with the latest technology and resources to ensure safety for anyone who uses the facility.
"We've designed this building in total with patient, visitor and staff safety as a prevailing thought throughout the construction process," said Charles Ervin, director of facility and support operations.
Part of that safety is based on the layout of the building, which creates a sense of efficiency.
"Unlike the old building, we had an opportunity from the beginning to ask ourselves 'How do we most efficiently layout this building,' and so we built in efficiency and ease of access not only for patients, visitors, medial staff and staff but also for local safety officials such as fire department and police department," Ervin said.
In designing the building itself, the administration worked with department managers and employees. Ervin said thought was given to building materials, to rooms such as soiled utility rooms, and even to how signs in the building were displayed.
"All of that was encompassed in our planning," Ervin said.
Administration and staff at Mercy have been working with Chief William Ennis of the Tiffin Fire Department to prepare the building in case of a fire emergency.
"Chief Ennis has made a great effort to make sure smoke penetration is built properly, all the fire walls are properly sealed and fire retardant," said Dave Recker, manager of plant operations.
As well as working with the Tiffin Fire Department, Mercy also has worked with local EMS partners including Dan Stahl, director of the Seneca County Emergency Management Agency and Ken Majors, Seneca County Emergency Management Services director.
Security also has been improved at the new location.
The new building has an automated security management system with 55 points of entrance, compared to about eight automated points of entrance in the old building.
"We have much more automated access from a security standpoint in this building than the other," Ervin. "It maximizes our control of the building that way."
This new system is to give them information in case of an emergency that can be pin-pointed to show when or where a breach has been made.
There also has been attention put on parking and traffic to make it accessible at every major entrance and efficient for patient and ambulatory traffic.
Some of the changes at Mercy are based on new technology.
In an attempt to minimize problems that may occur from having equipment on the floor, Mercy Hospital of Tiffin is to use a new system with equipment mounted on the ceiling using booms in operating rooms.
"As opposed to equipment on stands in ORs that people had to work around before, now everything hangs off of booms off the ceiling," Ervin said. "We've dramatically improved patients' safety."
All of the equipment including monitors and medical gas systems are plugged into the boom, keeping power cords and equipment off the floor so staff can freely move around the room.
The old building had a system that constantly infused the sterile area with sterile air from the ceiling, pushing out all air currents.
The new system will use a similar process but a curtain now goes around the area to keep out all dust and bacteria from migrating into the field.
"It's the latest in technology," said Jean Thompson, manager of preoperative services.
The new hospital also is using technology to improve radiology by going to digital imaging. Kathy Strausbaugh, safety coordinator, said this improvement also has safety implications.
"We eliminated a lot of hazardous products by going digital because we do not need the fluids to process the images," Strausbaugh said.
In the old building, every operating room had a sharps container, a box which is used to keep used needles. There also are red containers for biohazardous materials that were visible throughout the old building.
Ervin said the placement of these containers and other safety equipment were given special attention.
"From a building manager perspective, careful thought was given to where we put sharp containers and hand disinfectant," Ervin said.
Strausbaugh said Mercy Hospital will continue to use Stericycle, which handles medical waste disposal and sharps disposal.
The process of cleaning the rooms is to be similar to the process in the old building.
"The whole staff is dedicated to cleaning rooms and committed to making sure the area is properly cleaned," Thompson said. "That's our first defense against surgical sight infection."
The procedure rooms themselves, however, will change.
In the new building the space for surgeries is much larger so patients will be admitted to a private area and will not have to be moved.
"It's so much more efficient," Thompson said.
In addition to improving patient safety, Mercy hopes to continue to promote a safer, cleaner environment.
Of their waste, 22 percent is recycled, including everything from cardboard, plastic, aluminum and computer equipment.
"Whatever we can do to keep from putting things into landfills, we do," Strausbaugh said.
Ervin said the new building is to improve on the standards of Mercy Hospital of Tiffin's old location, as well as provide quality healthcare in a safe, state of the art facility.
"It will be fair to say truly this is one of the safest buildings in Tiffin," Ervin said.
