By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
What the new Integrated Stroke Unit can mean to the community was the subject of the educational portion of the Northumberland Hills Hospital board’s October meeting.
Vice-President of Integrated Care and Chief Nursing Executive Kate Zimmerman said that the specialized unit is dedicated to the management of stroke patients by providing both acute and rehabilitative care following a stroke, its co-located beds staffed with a professional team possessing stroke expertise. The result is a significant impact on short-term and long-term outcomes, reducing the likelihood of death, disability and the need for institutionalization by 25%.
This has been in the works for several years, she said. Planning for the unit began in 2019 but was set aside during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, it was identified as an organizational priority.
A steering committed with 12 working groups was formed in November, and an implementation plan was created in March 2023. Its 32 project deliverables were completed in time for the unit to be launched last month.
Investments in the unit include a dedicated clinical project manager with stroke-care expertise, a new full-time social worker, a part-time speech-language pathologist, specialized equipment, occupational therapy and speech-language programs, space set aside for both a well-equipped rehabilitation gym and a quiet room for patients and their families, and staff education and training.
They are able to provide a consultation with an internal-medicine specialist for a patient within 24 hours of admission. And thanks to March of Dimes volunteers, they can provide a peer stroke-visiting program.
Over the course of a year, they will be able to accept about 20 stroke patients from Campbellford Memorial Hospital as part of the 120 patients they expect to see a year. It is anticipated that two of the beds will be occupied by acute-care patients, with the remaining four used by rehab patients.
Zimmerman described how it has been made possible through a generous donation from Ray Gupta and family, who own a Port Hope business and made the gift in memory of former employees Bob and Rose Avery. Bob was a stroke patient at NHH, Zimmerman explained, with Rose as his every-day visitor. Even after his death, Rose continued to visit and keep up the connections she had made. Both have since passed, but the Bob and Rose Avery Integrated Stroke Unit will help many more.
