HILO — Hilo Medical Center’s patient rooms are going under the knife. HILO — Hilo Medical Center’s patient rooms are going under the knife. ADVERTISING It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the hospital has seen any
HILO — Hilo Medical Center’s patient rooms are going under the knife.
It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the hospital has seen any major work done to the interior of the rooms, and it’s well past time for a facelift, said Dan Brinkman, HMC’s regional chief nurse.
“The hospital was built in 1985, and all the units are the original units. … Most are in their original layout. Not much has been done to them, especially the aesthetic environment,” he said. “It’s definitely due for a refresh.”
The plan is to renovate the rooms at HMC unit by unit over the course of a year, Brinkman said, focusing on those units that have the greatest need for an update first. Consisting of 32 rooms and a total of 46 beds, the hospital’s Medical Unit is first in line, and renovations are already under way, with three rooms complete as of mid-August.
Hospital officials are being careful not to call the update a “remodel,” as they don’t have the funds to do a complete, structural overhaul of the rooms.
Rather, Brinkman said, it’s an attempt to improve the patient experience at the hospital.
“Part of the reason that this (renovation) was prioritized was because we’re in the middle of a three-year campaign to improve the patient experience here,” Brinkman said.
The hospital has performed relatively poorly in past years on surveys rating patients’ stays at HMC, Brinkman said, and patient room aesthetics have played a large role in those results.
“In the section of the patients surveys involving surroundings, we’ve been performing in the bottom third due to the age of the hospital,” he said. “We do well in cleanliness and the quality of care, but surroundings do play a role in patient expectations.”
The typical patient in HMC’s medical unit has a stay of between three and six days, he added, and there isn’t much for people on the mend to do but pay close attention to their immediate surroundings. That means details such as the state of the beds, paint, cabinets, televisions, window curtains, bathrooms, and lighting all factor into making a patient’s stay more relaxing.
“Our current configuration is getting old, and provides not as good an experience,” Brinkman said. “Now, we’re adding nice, soothing colors, new beds. It improves the experience.”
Brinkman added that HMC must continue to seek funds to keep up with other hospitals around the country, which are increasingly going with the new “suite-model” of patient rooms, offering more privacy to their clients, as well as more privacy and room for visiting family members.
“In an ideal world, we’d have all private rooms,” he said. “But that would take a third of all of our beds out of service, and we handle too many people to do that.”
The beds, meanwhile, will be the largest single expense in the renovations, costing about $15,000 apiece, he said. They come equipped with the newest technologies, including a fifth wheel under the center portion of the bed, allowing nurses to spin and reposition them unaided. The beds are even capable of weighing a patient, so they don’t have to get out of bed to get on a scale.
The hospital expects to spend nearly $700,000 alone on the medical unit’s new beds, Brinkman said.
New furnishings and other renovations will be covered by the Hilo Medical Center Foundation as part of its next big fundraising effort.
Earlier this month, California resident Jason Bell, 39, had an opportunity to stay in one of the newly renovated rooms after falling ill while visiting his father on the island. Earlier, he had spent a few days in one of the old rooms, so he was able to make a fair comparison.
“They’re brighter, cleaner, and more cheerful,” he said of the room updates. “And these beds are really handy. You can change the channels on the TV with the (connected) remote, you can call the nurse, turn on a light …”
Bell, who depends upon a wheelchair, added that the new beds have features that help people in his situation by preventing bed sores and other breakdown of the skin as a result of long bed stays with little movement.
Ultimately, however, Bell argued that all the renovations and fancy technology in the world couldn’t equal the care of a good nurse.
“The nurses are really what make the place,” he said. “They’re great.”
