New Women’s Health triage unit offers solution to increased labor and delivery visits
A new four-bed triage unit in Women’s Health at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center opened in October, providing much-needed space for increased patient volume. The unit was the second phase of a three-phase renovation project and features larger, family-friendly rooms for postpartum and antepartum patients and their families, as well as an updated nursery.
Dr. Jaimey Pauli, an obstetrician/gynecologist, said the triage unit was necessary due to the steady increase in patient visits to Labor and Delivery, as well as delivery volume, in the last decade.
“We broke our hospital annual delivery record both in 2015-2016 with 2,074 deliveries and again in 2017-2018 with 2,154 deliveries,” Pauli said. “We needed more space to see patients who have to be evaluated without holding up the labor and delivery rooms needed for laboring patients.”
Located on the third floor of the Women’s Health unit, the triage rooms are used to evaluate patients for preterm labor, preeclampsia and other common complications of pregnancy. All the rooms are equipped with electronic fetal monitoring systems that are linked to Labor and Delivery’s central monitoring system.
The four state-of-the-art triage rooms are used for preoperative preparation for scheduled cesarean deliveries and immediate postoperative recovery. They are equipped with fetal monitors and neonatal resuscitation equipment in case of an urgent delivery, and their size easily accommodates mobile ultrasound exams. Each features a full bathroom with shower and a flat-screen television connected to the Penn State GetWell Network.
In the first phase of the Women’s Health unit renovation, patient rooms and the newborn nursery in the west wing were remodeled. The third phase provided an expanded teamwork area for physicians and nurses, a facelift to the five existing labor and delivery rooms and a new nutrition room.
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