St. Joseph’s General Hospital’s transitional care unit project team received the 2012 Award of Merit for Top Innovation – Affiliate at this year’s Health Employers’ Association of BC, Excellence in BC Health Care Awards.
"We are thrilled to have received this award. It is a wonderful recognition for our proficient and committed team of medical, clinical and support staff who have worked so hard to establish the transitional care unit to benefit the patients we serve," says Jane Murphy, St. Joseph's president and CEO.
The transitional care unit was developed in 2010 to support the transition of elderly patients who no longer required acute care but needed an alternate level of care such as support to transition home or to a residential care facility. Without appropriate focus and care these patients’ functioning was not improving and many were becoming more frail and dependent.
The solution was a change in care delivery on a dedicated unit (the transitional care unit) aimed at improving each patient’s capacity for independent living, or assisted living/residential care, by returning them to as close to their pre-admission functional status as possible.
Dr. Margaret Manville, FCFP care of the elderly and co-director of St. Joseph’s transitional care unit, as part of a UBC clinical scholar internship, undertook a study to evaluate the change in care delivery to ALC patients at St. Joseph’s Hospital and to examine the impact of congregating ALC patients on an interdisciplinary unit (transitional care unit) and how this change improved their clinical outcomes.
Manville states, "It has been a privilege to work with a skilled team of clinicians whose goals are to improve the quality of hospital care to frail seniors."
—St. Joseph's General Hospital