VISITING HOSPITAL

All hospital visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask. Expand this message for information about visiting hospital.

Last updated:
13 March 2023

Some visitor restrictions for all Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury hospitals and health facilities remain in place, but we have relaxed others.

There is still a heightened risk to vulnerable people in hospital and so we recommend all people wear a mask when visiting any of our facilities and follow other advice designed to keep patients, staff and  visitors safe.

To keep everybody safe:

  • Visitors or support people must not visit our facilities if they are unwell. Do not visit if you have recently tested positive for COVID-19 and haven’t completed your isolation period.
  • Patients may have more than one visitor, except in some situations such as multi-bed rooms where it can cause overcrowding.
  • Surgical/medical masks are recommended to be worn at all sites. Masks will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • For Specialist Mental Health Services everyone is strongly encouraged to wear a face mask in all inpatient areas and areas where consumers are receiving care (i.e. community appointments, home-visits, transporting people). Discretion may be applied in cases where masks impair your ability to communicate effectively.
  • Visitors must not eat or drink in multibed rooms because of the increased risk when multiple people remove their face mask in the same space.
  • Hand sanitiser is available and must be used.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as our staff work hard to protect and care for some of the most vulnerable in our community.

Visiting patients with COVID-19

  • People can visit patients who have COVID-19 but they must wear an N95 mask – this will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • Other methods of communication will be facilitated e.g. phone, Facetime, Zoom, WhatsApp etc where visits aren’t possible.

All of our Hospitals

Visiting hours for our hospitals have returned to pre COVID-19 hours with the exception of Christchurch Women’s Hospital.

All visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask.

Parents/caregivers are able to be with their child in hospital and visitors are now allowed, except for the Children’s Haematology and Oncology Day stay where just one parent/caregiver is able to attend their appointment with their child. Exceptions by special arrangement only.

Patients and visitors should also read the additional more detailed visiting guidelines for each specific hospital.

More COVID-19 information

Cortex saving hundreds of hospital bed nights monthly

Thursday 26 October 2017Media release3 minutes to read

THIS IS AN ARCHIVED PAGE. The advice and information contained in this page may not be current and it should only be used for historical reference purposes.

Canterbury District Health Board and the creators of Cortex, Sense Medical are delighted to introduce the newest version of the iPad and iPhone application to the wider health system.  Cortex has been designed by clinicians for clinicians, to improve the quality of patient care and the efficiency of hospital care teams.

New Zealand software company Sense Medical will be presenting results of a major expansion of version 3 of their ground-breaking application ‘Cortex' at the HINZ conference in Rotorua next week.

The Cortex care coordination platform allows doctors, nurses and allied health clinicians to work together seamlessly. The application provides documentation of clinical notes, team and individual task management, electronic ordering of diagnostic tests, notification of results availability, and direct access to the results themselves – all at the patient's bedside.

Expanding the use of the platform within Canterbury District Health Board has produced dramatic results in the General Medical Surgical Division at Christchurch Hospital. Since the middle of June, patients have avoided more than a thousand nights in hospital; achieving an almost 20 percent reduction in the average length of stay.

Sense Medical's Co-Founder Dr Alistair Rumball-Smith, says the results are an exciting validation that using mobile technology can make a measurable difference to the efficiency of health care teams.

“DHBs around the country are under pressure to provide care with resourcing that cannot keep pace with increasing demand. Cortex can help ease some of this pressure through improving care efficiency, as these results from Canterbury confirm.”

The application was developed in collaboration with Canterbury District Health Board through their Via Innovations initiative, which was set up to support emerging health technology solutions.

Stella Ward, Executive Lead – Health Innovation at Canterbury and West Coast DHBs says the enthusiastic uptake of Cortex by clinicians and its proven benefits have led Canterbury DHB to commit to an expansion of Cortex across its hospitals, starting with the new Acute Services Building which has been designed to be ‘paperlite' from day one.

“Removing paper from the inpatient journey helps to ensure that notes are legible, handovers are clearer and critical clinical information is always available to the right people at the right place and at the right time.”

“Cortex is a key component of our emergent paperless and world-class mobile environment in our hospitals.”

“We're excited to be able to provide our clinicians with a tool that allows them to work smarter, quicker and more safely,” Stella says.

The HiNZ Conference is New Zealand's largest digital health event and is being held in Rotorua for three days from 1 November. The conference will attract a diverse group of over 1000 delegates including clinicians, health sector managers, academics, educators, government, IT professionals and industry.

“All the key players in health and technology will be there and I look forward to conversations about how well Cortex is working for us and how it might benefit users on a national scale,” Stella says.

Further information about Cortex is available at >http://www.sensemedical.co.nz.

ENDS

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Page last updated: 19 October 2022

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