Universal Care Unit
The Universal Care Unit, or UCU, is an improved care model being implemented at the new 82-bed acute care Sutter Medical Center Santa Rosa (SMCSR) hospital. This unit will have 24 private rooms designed to increase accessibility, operational efficiency, and capacity for the emergency and surgery departments, while also providing space for outpatients and observation status patients requiring up to 24 hours of nursing care. The private rooms offer increased comfort and privacy, while also allowing greater flexibility in admissions. Some key features of the new UCU rooms include access to patient education, a family zone, sliding glass doors for acoustical privacy as well as a curtain for visual privacy, and patient monitoring systems.
The UCU will be conveniently located on the first floor between the emergency and surgery departments, and adjacent to diagnostic services and the catheterization laboratory. Patients in the UCU will receive high quality advanced hospital care with less paperwork than admitted patients. This helps to streamline procedures and saves staff time and money.
One of the most critical issues impacting a hospital’s financial health are the costs associated with planning for expected hospital occupancy and bed demand in a given community. The goal for architects and engineers is to size a hospital correctly for the population it serves. To ensure an adequate level and scope of services, planners must anticipate expected occupancy demand months and years in advance to ensure appropriate staffing levels, supplies and care factors. The UCU provides a flexible treatment area that can be shared by multiple hospital service groups.
For example, the occupancy rate at SMCSR from 2002 to 2008 showed a decline of 48% in the inpatient average daily census (ADC). This trend is continuing, calling for the need to adjust the total number of beds available in the new hospital to cope with this reality and reduce expense, while not reducing the volume of care provided to the community.
SMCSR’s experience in Sonoma County tracks with national statistics showing lower inpatient needs in the future due to technological treatment advances -- such as minimally invasive surgery -- as well as other outpatient care options that can decrease hospital length of stay. This means that the percentage of patients requiring accommodations for fewer than 24 hours is rising. The resulting patient census shift, from inpatient to outpatient care, is a primary reason for establishing the UCU.
The UCU is designed to serve those that do not require inpatient hospitalization but may require nursing care for several hours or overnight. This can occur after patients receive medical treatment in the emergency room, in the cardio-vascular catheterization lab or undergo various less invasive surgical procedures. Some 15% to 20% of all patients are in these categories.
SMCSR will continue to provide quality care in a changing environment. The new, state-of-the-art Sutter Medical Center in Santa Rosa is being designed to be highly accessible and will be managed in ways that will better optimize performance, operational affordability, quality service and improved patient care – helping to reduce the overall cost of health care in Sonoma County.