New Enumclaw Hospital Boasts High-Technology

Imagine you are in a foreign country and you have a bad fall and are taken to a hospital but you don’t speak the language.

How do you tell them how much pain you are in so medical professionals can relieve it?

With a worldwide attraction such as Mount Rainier nearby, such an incident certainly is possible.

Well, the 6-month-old, $75 million St. Elizabeth Hospital in Enumclaw is ready for such an accident with its talking beds.

Well, the beds don’t actually talk, but they do have recordings in 22 languages that can ask patients basic questions, such as on a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain are they having.

Those beds in the intensive care unit are just one of many new technologies that make the new facility better than the old Enumclaw Regional Hospital.

“We use the latest technology available to keep the patient safe,” said Shelley Prico, patient services director, adding the beds also vibrate and use sound therapy to help patients relax.

Prico noted how quiet it is at the hospital. One reason is there are no overhead pages, except for major reasons such as blue codes. Instead, employees have "Star Trek" type devices they communicate with. When they press the button and say the name of the person they want to reach they can almost instantly talk to them.

The "Voceras" are so popular doctors have asked to get them, too.

Another high-technology feature is a vending machine for blood. Not everyone has access to it, of course, but it does contain plasma. It was vital to get the machine because the nearest blood center is in Tukwila. St. Elizabeth’s is just the third hospital in the state to get the machine, and the 10^th in the nation.

The top-notch hospital equipment includes a CT scanner that is very detailed and accurate.

“It’s 64 slice, very sophisticated,” hospital president Dennis Popp said, adding it’s a better one than at the other four local Franciscan hospitals.

Like most hospitals, St. Elizabeth’s has televisions in every room. But what makes their system special is it is connected to an online education system that allows patients to learn how they can take care of themselves once they are discharged.

Like many medical facilities, the hospital has electronic medical records at the bedside computer of each patient to make sure the treatment is up to date and accurate.

“With the internet there is no limit to what can happen,” Popp said.

For example, even though the hospital doesn’t offer services for neurology, it can have a patient be observed by a doctor at St Joseph’s using something like a web cam and a secured network that works something like Skype.

Since information is digitized, images can be read 24 hours a day, seven days a week by radiologists at the hospital, at nearby hospitals or even the Mayo Clinic.

Prico said the process is called telehealth.

“We can get the consultation and keep the patient in the community, so the services extend to us,” she said.

There’s also a machine that can accurately let patients know if they have heartburn or a heart problem, making it an extension of the lab at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tacoma, another Franciscan facility.

The hospital has won a number of awards in its short life,
including one for being well-wired.

Another vast improvement is in the Gastrointestinal area. At the new hospital they are seeing 250 patients a month, or 3,000 a year. While the new hospital has its own private section, the old one used the emergency room.

Also, medications are kept behind locked doors so staff can better focus when they get them.

“We can avoid errors if they are not distracted,” Prico said.

Other improvement over the old hospital include: digital mammography, which used to take place “wherever they could,” a lift in each room to make it safer for staff to move patients, and the MRI room, which used to be in a trailer outside the old hospital.

And, while the old hospital had room for one ambulance, this one has space for four, and walk-ins have their own emergency entrance.

One of the biggest improvements is the helipad at the top of the hospital. With the old facility, helicopters had to land blocks away. Patients then had to be transported by ambulance to the hospital. That process could take 20 to 30 minutes, which is vital time for patients with serious injuries.

"We weren't serving the needs of the patients," Prico said, adding the hospital was 60 years old.

When Popp sees the helipad being used now by Airlift Northwest, he said he often thinks, “We’re saving another life.”

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