Emergency Department entrance of the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital (photo by Liam Verster)

By Liam Verster

GPRH

Extra operating rooms will make Grande Prairie Regional Hospital the health care hub for Northern Alberta

Mar 4, 2021 | 5:06 PM

The Grande Prairie Regional Hospital is going to have 11 operating room suites, after two that were previously shelled are now being supported through the Alberta Surgical Initiative.

Building out the two additional operating room suites is being incorporated into the ongoing work involved in Phase Two of the hospital’s construction, which began after the key hand over ceremony in June, 2020. The work involves building out a 28-bed mental health unit, as well as an additional 32-bed medical unit that was previously shelled space in the facility.

Alberta Health Services’ Senior Operating Officer for Clinical Operations in Grande Prairie, Stacy Greening, says these additions will help the hospital become a health care hub for Northern Alberta and some of Northern BC.

“We do serve a large catchment area of about, depending on the service area, of about 250,000 to 350,000 catchment population,” says Greening.

“That mental health unit is one of three in the North Zone, and so it expands on the current compliment of 18 beds that we have here, and it’s going to bring spaces for youth mental health, and geriatric mental health, which we don’t currently have in the zone. And then those medical units, obviously our medicine beds are well subscribed and we care for a number of people in those spaces.”

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Greening adds the O.R. suites are also key to growing as a hub for the north.

“We are the largest surgical facility in the North Zone, so we do a little bit over 50 per cent of the surgical volume currently in the North, and so that will allow us to continue to grow that program, so we’re pretty excited about that.”

While construction is ongoing, equipment procurement and installation is ongoing. Greening says along with the usual furniture and apparatuses needed in the hospital, there are some items being installed that will further cement GPRH as the top hospital in the North

“A few of the major installs that are currently underway are our linear accelerators for radiation therapy in our cancer centre. So, that will bring radiation therapy for the first time to the North Zone, so we are one of the sites that has been designated as a radiation therapy service.

“And then our parallel analyzers in the lab (are being installed), and that’s only the second of it’s kind in Canada.”

Once installed, the equipment will need to be inspected to make sure they are functional and ready for when the hospital reopens.

All of the equipment, furniture, and space in the new hospital will be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized once work is complete.

Meanwhile, AHS is working on it’s brand new electronic medical record, Connect Care, which will allow for records to be compiled and shared between facilities through one integrated system.

It’s expected that Connect Care will be fully functional and in operation by the time the hospital opens, which Greening says will be in late 2021, though could not confirm a more specific date.

Related Story: Take the tour: Phase One of Grande Prairie Regional Hospital construction now complete