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PAGE YORK COUNTY HOSPITAL In the future You wont know your hospital 1982 A patient enters and is immediately hoisted onto a stretcher on a conveyer belt The stretcher moves slowly past a line of masked whiterobed technicians Each like a robot silently performs an assigned task One records heart beat the next blood pressure the third takes a blood sample Into a clicking computerized machine go the in formation and the samples Seconds later the machine spits back a printout giving a diagnosis and describing the treatment An automatic arm stretches out of the machine and pins the printout on the patients chest as the stretcher carries him offstage right Chilling Of course And sometimes it seems as if hospital care in the future could be that way But relax Its not going to happen in Newmarket York County Hospital has plans for the future but not in that direction Looking to the years ahead beyond the completion of Ihe new addition which will go to tender February administrator Elmer William Roeder sees the hospital developing new services to meet the needs of the community We must see to it that we relate to the community in a personal sense he says He predicts the hospital will decentralize It will set up health clinics in the community where each be treated as a person a whole person not as a number or a broken leg or a sore throat would be desirable he says although not essential for the clinics to he pari or and staffed by the hospital so it could lake responsibility for standard of care provided In any case the hospital will provide support services to these treatment and diagnostic satellite clinics Everybody in the health care system should relate to everybody else Nobody should operate unilaterally Roeder foresees the hospital providing more care to people who do not slay in hospital around the clock during treatment Currently he says hospitals provide the kind of care he calls all or nothing Hospital patients are admitted put flat on their backs and all forced to fit one mold York County Hospital has been providing care for outpatients in recent years and this will expand a great deal he says Some people can get through the day all right but not the night or vice- versa They need to be in hospital for only part of the day The hospital will in future provide a broader range of daycare services It will also he says provide more psychiatric care in the community It has begun to help in the schools and with family counselling and these services will be expanded He does not foresee automation playing a major role in the hospitals daytoday operations Some new hospitals have builtin automated distribution systems to move supplies to all parts of the hospital These are designed to reduce staff and save wages says that is not the an swer for York County Hospital The hospital wants people involved You cant write them off he says theyre the ones that make things go After all what kind of cheery word can a patient get from an automated supply lift Moreover Roeder thinks automation makes a hospital less flexible and he wants it to slay loose enough to change as the demands on it change For example he says the hospital requires less space for obstetrics and pediatrics a trend apparent all over North America as birth rates drop But it is treating more and more people injured in accidents as traffic and highway travel increase It is also treating an increasing number of elderly patients Over the last years this has been the biggest single change says crediting the improved skills of physicians and the many new drugs that have become available Surgery that could never have been attempted in the past now can be done successfully and safely on people over GS he says A person of would have been considered a pretty poor risk for gall bladder removal But now now Although automation of supplies is not in his crystal ball does see machines becoming librarians Were almost choking on paper work he sighs The hospital at one lime explored with Richmond Hills York Central Hospital the cost of developing a joint computerized in formation system The computers memory tapes would hold medical records and the computer would print out requisitions for treatment Eventually he says there will be one single medical record system for all Ontario hospitals That would mean any one hospital had ready access to the identity and medical history of any person seeking In lh past York County Hospital has had difficultv finding the kin and getting medical backgrounds on accident victims rushed to emergency Someday may each have a number we must carry with us which corresponds to information about us stored in the memory of a Roeder also sees the hospital moving into the space age by developing a nuclear medicine department It is a field of medicine that is developing rapidly and through which doctors can scan parts of the body and glean an increasing amount of information to help them diagnose ailments Nuclear medicine says will bring about a whole new group of workers He predicts a change in the role of the nurse The medical profession gives to the general duty nurse the res for 34hour care of patients It will be a real advance in recognized as a true partner in Weve run out the string on that old masterservant relationship In the future he says the nurse will be allowed to do more things for patients procedures that now are only done by doctors He also sees nurses being trained as specialists in such fields as coronary care Instead of assigning a general duly nurse and training her on the job the time has come to train her for a particular type of nursing He sees care being provided by teams doctors nurses physiotherapists medicalsocial workers or whoever can help a par ticular patient What we need to do in hospitals is pay more than lip service to team work says If you tap the resources and try to get the best from everyone so that care does not reflect one persons thinking only you get results Best or all he sees hospital workers developing a greater understanding of Hie sick people can suffer and learning new ways to relieve them A patient can get good clinical treatment but he can feel hes had dreadful care and suffer great emotional trauma Most people dont really know if medical care is good All they know is whether they were treated kindly with respect given good appetizing food and whether the people in the hospital seemed to know We must respond to their needs as they see them not the way we see ihem and we can rid them of And without worries to compound their ailments the patients of York County Hospital can be healed and home sooner and better satisfied than Most people dont really know if medical care is good All they know is whether they were treated kindly and with respect BEST WISHES TO YORK COUNTY HOSPITAL From Stouffville Monument Works Artistic Memorials of Distinction LETTERING A SPECIALTY BUS MONFRI85 SAT 28 With the compliments of EVES LUMBER 447 Davis Drive Newmarket on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of YORK The