Hospital improvements to boost patient privacy

RX FOR SUCCESS: Lester P. Schindel, CEO of CharterCARE Health Partners, right, speaks with Dr. Michael Bonitati, medical director of the emergency room at Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
RX FOR SUCCESS: Lester P. Schindel, CEO of CharterCARE Health Partners, right, speaks with Dr. Michael Bonitati, medical director of the emergency room at Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

When patients visit the emergency departments at Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital now, they are ushered into areas separated only by curtains for privacy.

That will change once a $17.5 million facility improvement plan is completed at the two hospitals, where 26,000 patients at Roger Williams and 28,000 at Fatima are seen in the emergency departments annually.

Gone will be the spaces separated by curtains, and in their place will be 51 actual rooms with walls and doors, one of several changes planned to improve care and the patient experience at the hospitals.

“The idea came from patients [and] physicians,” Lester P. Schindel, CharterCARE CEO, told Providence Business News. “To really treat these patients, we need to provide them with a better environment.”

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On Oct. 19, CharterCARE Health Partners, the corporate parent of Providence’s Roger Williams and Fatima in North Providence, held a groundbreaking for the projects, which are being funded by private capital.

At Roger Williams, the 7,000-square-foot emergency department will be expanded and renovated, making it 23,000 square feet. There will be 28 rooms, six more than there are now. The $8 million project also will provide a more private waiting area for behavioral-health patients, officials said.

Roger Williams will receive $13.5 million in improvements overall, including $5.5 million for the construction of a new lobby and entrance.

Fatima’s 12,500-square-foot emergency department will receive an additional 2,500 square feet. The $4 million project at Fatima will renovate the emergency space, upgrading the nursing area to enhance patient care and employee workflow, officials said, adding that services for behavioral-health patients also will improve. In addition, the project will move the hospital’s main entrance to the southern side to provide better access to parking for patients and visitors, officials said. There is another proposal to add a cardiac catheterization and angioplasty laboratory at Fatima, but it still needs state approval through the Health Services Council and Certificate of Need process. If that moves forward, the project total for the two hospitals would be $20 million, Schindel said.

At both hospitals, Schindel said, spaces are being designed to be more code-complaint.

And, as more patients visit emergency departments for treatment for mental illness and addiction, Schindel said the need for changes grows.

He explained that behavioral-health patients, particularly at Roger Williams, sometimes had to remain in the emergency department while their assessment was underway. Now, he said, they will have their own private area, in a new setting.

Schindel said CharterCARE is focusing on an integrated mental health system approach, working with community providers to ensure that behavioral-health patients are cared for, an initiative that is being promoted by Prospect Medical Holdings, which, along with CharterCARE Community Board, jointly owns CharterCARE Health Partners.

“A key point for management of illness is to have an appropriate level of evaluation and appropriate level of treatment. Not everyone needs to be admitted, but not everyone can be discharged,” Schindel said. “We’re trying to put together an integrated behavioral-health approach that links community medicine with a full continuum of care.”

Lynn M. Blais, president of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5110 at Fatima, which represents approximately 250 registered nurses, called the project there a “welcome change” for emergency staff.

Blais said having private rooms for patients will be a plus. There are 21 rooms now at Fatima with curtains separating them. That number will change to 23 fully enclosed rooms once the project is complete.

She said the union still has concerns about how Charter and Prospect are dealing with the workforce, and feel an investment in staff also is needed. For the emergency room alone, she said at least three new nurses on each of the three shifts are needed. Blais said Roger Williams’ nurses are expected to join the union in February.

Schindel called the projects “groundbreaking,” not just for CharterCARE, but for the community, as they will add more than 200 new construction jobs and, once the projects are completed by the end of next year, 100 to 125 new hospital jobs.

He also noted that over the past year, CharterCARE has spent more than $7 million in new equipment for surgical and patient-care services, in an effort to improve care.

“Having a nicer environment makes people feel better. At the end of the day, it’s all about the patients,” said Dr. Joseph P. Mazza, chairman of the board of the Independent Physican Association and director of cardiology at CharterCARE. •

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