Deaconess Hospital Hospital

very clean

Would recommend it to anyone needing to spend time in a hospital.

My main complaint was the proceedure they use for someone waiting to have a GI test. I was in pain and loaded up on drugs. I was taken by wheelchair to the lab area and placed in the hall. I was there for 30 minutes for all to see in only my hospital gown. It is not a good set up at all. There should be a more private area for patients. I didn't like being wheeled past visitors and being observed by all who were coming and going. The rest of the stay was great and they have some wonderful student nurses and nurses. I felt like I got alot of attention. One student nurse stopped by my room the second day to let me know she had been shadowing Dr. Burry and saw some of the patients who had surgery the week before. She wanted me to know they felt really well and were doing good and to keep my chin up. It meant alot when I was still in my "what the heck have I done" mode. She was very right.

I was the first Lap band done at this hospital. I made history!! It was a wonderful experience and Dr. Burry was Great! Due to private issues, I did not do an interview with the paper so this allowed the second person to express her feelings. So it was a rewarding day all round.

I wouldn't work at this facility if I didn't feel comforable enough to be a patient there myself.

livlite care for their patients 100% and so does the nurses and techs on the unit of 3600 were the bariatric pts go after surg.

A good place to recover, you just have to be persistant with the call button when you really need something and that can be very aggravating while trying to recover....the student nurse who helped me get a bath and get cleaned up was wonderful. The care was a lot better on the first night and then after that it kind of slacked off. I think there needs to be something in the bathroom so you can wipe after a bowel movement. I didn't have trouble wiping in the front but when I did the back it was very straining and hurt my insicion. Also I couldn't wash my hair the whole time I was there and that was awful. It seems like you could lay down and maybe someone could do it? Also the rooms were big so that was a plus. I wished they had a recliner though, so many times that bed was the most uncomfortable thing, I would have loved to relax in a recliner, the chair that sat straight up and down made me very nauseous when I tried to sit up. Also they expected me to write down and keep track of what I ate and drank, this was very hard to do when recovering and I was too tired to remember and the tray was usually out of reach. The main thing that affects your stay are the personalities of each individual nurse, some were the best and some you could tell really didn't care....

Deaconess has vastly improved it's customer service in all areas of the hospital. I was very very pleased.

Positives:
1. LivLite patients get private rooms with a couch and a chair. This made the stay a little easier as I could not sleep and had light and TV on at all hours.
2. Family was encouraged to help in my care. My husband got pretty good at unplugging me so I could go to the bathroom, sit in a chair or go for a walk.

Negatives:
1. No one told me the best way to get out of bed with the least amount of pain.
My husband had heart surgery 5 years ago and they told him to roll over on side and than out of be. I tried that, it worked. Also it seemed there was no consistent way to prepare the bed to make it easier to get out; i.e. side down, head up seemed to be the easiest, however, I found this out myself. There was a metal triange thing above my head, the middle of the 2nd day somone suggested I try to use this to pull my self out of bed, so instructions though.
2. A lazy boy chair sure would be a nice addition.
3. I had IV and these pressurized booties on my feet. It was real hard to move. The booties seemed to be very difficult to start back up after returning to bed from a walk; etc. Faulty equipment, no training --- something's wrong.
4. The dietians would drop my food on that table on wheels and take off. Twice it wasn't even within reach. I had to ask the staff to move the table, help with wrappers, etc. Keep in mind, I had IV on the side of my wrist, left hand was useless. It seemed all they cared about was your opinion of the food --- broth or a popsicle.
5. Somebody's got to figure out a method in "bathroom hygiene" and then educate the hospital and have all tools availabe and waiting for the patient's use. I had diarehea (sp?) and after I asked to a moist wipe, the Tech gave me a package of wiped that some remmained warm. Good idea, however, I couldn't get them opened, only one working hand and I didn't have my glasses on to read instructions. I finally tore into them and must have compromised the "heating" system, because they were cold after that.
6. Have fans available for patients, I had one, hot in room.
7. The very worst thing that happened while I was there was the "upper GI test" the day after surgery. I sat in a wheel chair in my room for about 20 minutes waiting for transporter. By the time they got there I was ready to go back to bed. It would have been nice had someone suggested that I "dope" up on morphine before they took me for that ride. I got very hot during the trip and the transporters kept telling me how red my face was, which made me feel worse. Than I got down to X-Ray and was dumped in the hallway; IV, port and all in my lovely '"Hospital issues". Before ladies left me I asked them for a wet washcloth, as I was getting mighty queasy. I was scared, thinking I would pass out (I had been up sitting for about 40 minutes and no end in sight) I was in pain and there was no one to help me. Once someone came out of the room across the hall from where I was sitting and I asked her for a wet wash cloth, I had dropped the first one. At last it was my turn, or so I thought ----- but complications with the machine in the other room put a patient ahead of me so had to wait longer. Why was I dumped in a hallway, why couldn't one of the transporters stay with me or at the least why wasn't I put in a waiting room with others, I was sick and scared and I didn't deserve that uncaring service.

I'm not a cliquish person. I hate cliques. However, there is a fairly large one on 3600, the WLS ward. Of my stay, I had one excellent nurse (too bad on my last night, too -- Theresa), and two wonderful techs (Ryan and someone else whom I forgot her name).

This is the training ward for the entire hospital, thus the staff changes on a regular basis as more experienced staff move to different wards. Thus, training was a bit off (I had to wait 11 hours to walk the first time, and 7 hours to walk the next day since a nurse had to "see it"). When I asked for help to clean up a bit, I waited 8 hours before a tech came in and told us that since it was a private room, they didn't help with baths/showers (which turned out to be BS).

However, once some of our issues were made light, the entire administrative staff of the hospital began to notice the issues, and have since begun training on WLS patients, with the promise that more WLS patients will create a WLS-only ward.