Yorkton and Foam Lake getting new health clinics, and they are going to show the way the Sunrise Health Region will tackle new projects in the future. Patient Central recently went through the design process, and Sunrise President and CEO Suann Laurent and Dr. Phillip Fourie are pleased with the results.

The design of the new clinic is based on something called the 3P process. The term stands for people, process and production, and it is a collaborative method that brought together over 40 people to work on the design. The process looks at the different ways people use the clinic and tries to work out the most efficient way to set up the layout.

“This will be the only way we design in the future in Sunrise,” Laurent says.

“In five days, we came up with more ideas than any one individual could come up with in six months, just by having forty people design it. The thing that is different is that the architect is only there to tell us what is needed for code... the actual design, from the ground up, comes from the patients who are involved, the providers who are involved, everybody is involved in the whole process,” Fourie adds.

The new clinic is one of the eight healthcare innovation sites in the province, and Laurent says that they are using the opportunity to take new approaches to patient-centric care. The clinic takes a team-based approach, putting specialists, physicians, pharmacists and health professionals under one roof and allow them to work together.

“We have physicians do what they do best, respiratory therapists do what they do best, pharmacists do what they do best, same with all the other parts that are integrated.”

“We will make more effective use of the physicians and improve access,” Fourie says.

“The way we want to work now is break down the walls and no longer have people working in their own silos.”

Laurent says that the project is going to be an important part of the way the health region approaches new projects in the future.

“This is the way to transform healthcare, through the lean management system. It’s really great to look at how we can make healthcare better with our patients, and I think Patient Central says it all, that’s what we want to be in the Sunrise Health Region,” says Laurent.

Fourie says that the new clinic will allow him and the other professionals in the practice to be able to do their job quicker and more efficiently, which will benefit patients and make appointments move more quickly.

“We will be able to take a lot of wasted time and a lot of wasted space out of the regular process of when a patient go to see a physician,” Fourie says.

It’s not currently known how much the clinic will cost, though it will be funded through a partnership between the Government of Saskatchewan, the city of Yorkton, the Sunrise Health Region and Fourie’s practice. Land has been set aside for the clinic near the hospital, and Fourie says that they hope it will be open within 12 months.