While You Are Here
We are pleased that you have chosen Evans Memorial Hospital for your healthcare needs. Once you are admitted, you become our guest as well as our patient.
By now you have met with a Patient Access Representative, received your identification bracelet, and were escorted to your room. We hope it was a pleasant experience.
Unless you were an emergency patient, your physician requested your admission and will make necessary arrangements for laboratory tests, examinations, medications, or other special treatments that you will need.
Identification Bracelets
The identification bracelet on your wrist must be worn until you leave the hospital. This is for your protection in order to ensure correct identification and information. As part of our Patient Safety program, your identification bracelet will be checked by staff for your name and date of birth when providing any care treatment, or service, including giving medication, taking blood, or giving blood. This is our reliable method of positively identifying each individual.
What You Will Need
Hospital gowns are provided or you may use your own pajamas or nightgown. You need your own toiletry articles and bedroom slippers. For safety reasons, we ask you not to bring any aerosol cans of deodorant, hairspray or shaving cream into the hospital.
Valuables
Several signatures are required from you upon admission to the hospital. The signed forms allow for your treatment here at the hospital, your acceptance of financial responsibility for services received, authorization for us to file your insurance, and release of responsibility for your personal belongings. You are strongly urged to send home any valuables you may have with you such as rings, watches, wallets, credit cards, keys, chargers, tablets, computers, or cash. The hospital will not be responsible for any valuables or personal items that are misplaced while you are here.
Appliances
You are welcome to bring electric equipment (i.e. shavers, radios, alarm clocks). However, if you have such items please notify your nurse, they must be inspected by Plant & Engineering prior to usage to ensure safety.
Photography, Video/Audio
The use of any type of camera or video recording device, including cell phone cameras, in any area of the hospital where patients or hospital personnel could be caught on film or tape is strictly prohibited without hospital authorization and the express written permission by the subject. Consent must be obtained and specific requirements must be met when taking or producing photographs, recordings, or television productions of EMH patients. Any collected images of a patient or procedure shall be considered protected health information, and will be maintained in a protected and secure manner as part of the patients medical record. See Nursing Administration if you have a need to review our policy in more detail or request Consent Forms.
Advanced Directives
You have the right to formulate an Advance Directive. The purpose of the advance directive is to ensure that your wishes regarding your healthcare are carried out should you become unable to make your requests known to your healthcare providers. Georgia law establishes a priority list of relatives that may consent to treatment if you are unable to give consent. With Georgia Advance Directive for Healthcare, you choose who will act on your behalf regarding healthcare decisions or even make the decisions in advance for yourself. Without this document someone will be appointed, in accordance with Georgia law, to act on your behalf. If you have an Advance Directive, please provide the hospital with a copy of this document which will then be placed on your chart.
Consent Forms
You may be asked to sign consent forms for certain types of treatment, tests and/or procedures which should have been explained to you by your physician. If you do not understand the procedure or test you are asked to consent to, tell your nurse, and your doctor will be notified. It is important for you to understand the risks, benefits, and alternatives available to you for the services you will receive.
Food and Nutrition Department
The Food and Nutrition Department of Evans Memorial strives to provide excellent service in accommodating patients with nutritious and appetizing meals. Food plays a vital role in the recovery of a patient; therefore, your physician has ordered the diet best suited to your needs and your physical condition. If there are changes in your diet from time to time, please understand it is in keeping with your physician's instruction.
On occasion, x-rays, laboratory tests, or procedures may require that your meals be delayed or altered.
Dining Room
The Hospital Dining Room is open to visitors for breakfast (Monday - Friday) and lunch daily. The hospital dining room is prepared to serve excellent hot meals as well as special diet plates upon request. Breakfast is served Monday though Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 9:15 a.m. and lunch is served from 11:00 a.m. until 1:15 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On Sunday lunch is served from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.
Nutritional Services
Our Nutritional Services Department provides individual outpatient medical nutrition therapy for patients of all ages. Registered Dietitians offer diet counseling for disease management and prevention. Nutritional counseling is provided at the hospital by appointment only. A physician referral is required. Fees vary depending on the level of service. For more information, please ask you doctor to call 912-739-5155 to make an appointment.
Housekeeping
It is our policy to clean your room daily. Please call for any concerns regarding the cleaning and upkeep of your room.
Monday - Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Extension: 912-739-5178
** After hours please share any concerns you may have about housekeeping with your nurse.
Volunteers
Evans Memorial Hospital volunteers contribute thousands of hours of service to our hospital and play a vital role in providing you with the best possible care and service during your stay with us. They staff the Information Desk and perform many other duties. If you would like to apply to be a volunteer, contact the Auxiliary Services by calling 912-739-5122.
Pastoral Care
Spiritual care is an important part of your healing. The interfaith chapel is located between the Respiratory and Emergency departments. The chapel is open 24 hours a day for patients and visitors of all faiths.
Special Needs
If you are hearing or vision impaired, or if English is not your language, interpreters will be provided to assist you.
Translation and/or transcription of important hospital forms, instructions, and information will be provided to you is you feel you need them.
Medications
If you brought any medications into the hospital, they should be given to the nurse so that they can be identified by the pharmacist, reviewed in consideration of your admitting diagnosis for present needs, and returned to a family member or stored until your discharge.
If the medications are not picked up prior to discharge, the person returning to pick up the medication should bring a valid picture form of identification. Medications that are not picked up after 3 months from your discharge date will be scheduled for destruction.
Education & Support
Evans Memorial Hospital believes that educating patients and their family improves health outcomes. Patient education is based on the patient's and family member's needs and priorities. It may include information to help patients and families achieve the following:
A better understanding of a patient's condition
Improved compliance with the healthcare plan prescribed by your doctor
Increased participation in the decision-making process
Improved self-care and coping abilities
Promotion of a healthier lifestyle
Better understanding of the financial implications of treatments
Pain Management
All guests have a right to pain relief. At Evans Memorial Hospital you can expect:
Information about pain and pain relief measures,
A concerned staff committed to pain prevention and management,
Health professionals who respond quickly to reports of pain, and
Effective pain management.
As a guest at this facility, we expect that you will:
Ask your caregiver what to expect regarding pain and pain management
Discuss pain relief options with your caregiver,
Work with your caregiver to develop a pain management plan,
Ask for pain relief when pain first begins,
Help your caregiver assess your pain,
Tell your caregiver if your pain is not relieved, and
Tell your caregiver about any worries you may have about taking pain medication.
How Long will your pain medication be needed?
Many patients only need pain medicine for a short amount of time until the cause of their pain goes away. Some patients with long-term illnesses, such as cancer or arthritis, will have to take medicine for longer periods of time.
Safe Practices
It is important for patients to take pain medication safely.
Know how and when to take medicine.
Know the side effects and what to do about them. Sometimes a change in the medication or the dose is needed to stop unwanted effects.
STOP TAKING your medication if you notice a rash or have any trouble breathing, and tell your doctor and/or nurse right away.
Timing
When taking pain medication, it is best not to wait until the pain is very bad. If you do, it may take longer for your medication to provide pain relief and may also require a larger dose. Taking pain medication thirty (30) minutes before an activity that may cause discomfort may be helpful; ask your doctor or nurse.
For Your Safety
Restraints
Evans Memorial Hospital strives for a restraint free environment that promotes and enhances the individual's rights and dignity. Family or significant others provide valuable information regarding comfort and security measures for the guest. The best way to keep a guest out of a restraining device is to surround them with people they know and love. We encourage families to visit us as often as they can, and provide diversional activates that have been known to calm the patient. Comfort measures are routine aspects of nursing care. These are situations in which restraints may be used:
Prevention of harm to self and others
Safe completion of therapies and treatments
Promotion of personal safety of the patient due to severe confusion.
The staff at Evans Memorial Hospital attempt to utilize the least restrictive measures possible to maintain safety. In the event that a restraining device is considered necessary, a family member or significant person will be informed. The nurse may request that a family member or significant other assist in the deescalation of anxiety and confusion by being present at the bedside. If the anxiety or confusion continues to present a safety concern, it may become necessary to implement a restraining device. Each guest's situation is viewed individually and restraining devices are removed as soon as safety risks are lessened. Guests are monitored and assessed frequently. Comfort measures are provided with position changes, fluids, toileting, food, and circulatory checks on a scheduled basis. If you have questions or concerns, please discuss them with a nurse.
Fall Prevention
The nursing staff has the following suggestions to help you avoid a fall during your hospitalization:
If the nurse has instructed you to call for assistance before getting out of bed, please do so.
Put on slippers with non-skid soles while walking.
Ask for help if you feel weak, dizzy, or light-headed when you need to get up.
Use the call switch (pull string) in the bathroom if you become weak or need assistance back to the bed.
Notify the nursing staff if a spill occurs on the floor.
Ask to have objects such as bedside tables, phone, and call lights within your easy reach if you are not able to reach them.
Never hesitate to use the nurse call system for assistance.
If the side rails on your bed are in the "up" position, they are there for your protection and to assist you in turning.
Please do not try to get out of a wheelchair by yourself.
Patient Safety
EMH is committed to creating a culture of safety that encourages the prevention and reporting of errors to improve care. Hospital leaders are actively involved in activities to improve quality of care and communicate with patients and families when problems occur.
The more healthcare information you have, the better you are at preventing errors and taking care of yourself. You need to ask your pharmacists, doctors, and nurses about your illnesses. Find out all that you can about your illness and medications you are taking. What you learn will help protect you later. Your doctors, Nurses and pharmacists work hard to keep you healthy, but you are also responsible.
Error Prevention
Some of the innovative methods that hospitals are implementing include:
Computer technology and preprinted forms are being used to make sure that physician's orders are not mistaken or misinterpreted.
Abbreviations that have been identified as confusing and problem prone are not used.
Special identification is used to alert the staff about a patient's special needs, allergies to medications or other treatment products to prevent harmful reactions.
To prevent doctors from operating on the wrong part of the body, patients are asked to identify the site of surgery, along with the site being marked.
Checking the identification bracelet to reliably identify the individual as the person for whom the care, treatment, or service is intended and to match the care, treatment, or service to the individual. Using two identifiers to properly identify a patient when a caregiver is administering medicine and blood, or drawing blood samples
6 Steps to Safer Healthcare
Speak up if you have questions or concerns related to care, treatment, services, and patient safety issues by notifying your nurse or physician.
Keep a list of all the medicines you take (and keep it up to date).
Make sure you get the results of any test or procedure.
Talk with your doctor and healthcare team about your options if you need hospital care.
Make sure you understand what will happen if you need surgery.
Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers come in contact with bacteria and viruses so before they treat you, ask them if the have washed their hands.