The Whanganui District Health Board's (WDHB) commitment to ensuring that Wanganui Hospital's nursing staff spend more time with patients and less time on administration, looking for supplies and dealing with interruptions that keep them away from patients, is paying off.
 
WDHB Service Improvement Manager Judith Bothma says the WDHB's 2009 decision to adopt the UK's National Health Service (NHS) Releasing Time to Care: Productive Ward Programme has transformed the four wards that have introduced the model.
 
“The medical, surgical, maternity and paediatric wards are noticeably calmer and better organised as a result of our working smarter rather than harder,” Ms Bothma says.
 
“Our implementation of the Releasing (nurses)Time to Care (for their patients): Productive Ward model is supported by the much publicised bedside shift handover that Wanganui Hospital adopted this year, as well as the Team Nursing model (two registered nurses and one health care assistant or enrolled nurse assigned to care for a group of patients) which the two largest wards (medical and surgical) have recently implemented.”
 
Ms Bothma says several DHBs throughout the New Zealand have adopted the Productive Ward Programme and all are running the Release Time to Care model successfully.
 
“The results have been astounding for Wanganui Hospital. When you go to the Medical Ward for example, you will find a small room with a marked floor plan where every piece of equipment belongs. If the blood pressure equipment is not there you know that someone on the ward is using it. If it is there you know exactly where to find it and thus save time.
 
“Recently introduced hourly patient rounds see nursing staff asking patients how they are and if there is anything they need. It’s very rare to hear a ringing bell now. Patients trust that their nurses will visit them on an hourly basis.
 
“Another improvement is the introduction of information boards beside the patients’ beds. These allow nurses and hospital staff to see a patient’s goals at a glance. This all saves time – time that our nursing teams now spend with their assigned patients.
 
“We also have an information white board in the staffroom which nursing staff can check at glance.”
 
Ms Bothma says the WDHB is one of five New Zealand DHBs that are now piloting the Productive Community Services Programme for the NHS which is seeing WDHB emerge as a leader in the way it’s running the programme.
 
“We’re also one of seven DHBs that are implementing the Productive Operating Theatre Programme and I’m pleased to be an advisor to the National Training Group responsible for the Productive Operating Theatre Programme rollout to other DHBs.
 
“Our new hospital campus was designed around productive ward principles so it’s fitting that in the not too distant future every one of our wards and departments will adopt the Productive Ward Programme.”