The upcoming Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower at Royal Columbian Hospital will introduce a new and innovative milk management system that will help ensure optimal growth and development for infants.
(Photo L to R) Jan Chan, dietitian and Stacey Rice, project leader
When Royal Columbian Hospital’s new Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower opens in 2025, it will introduce a new and innovative milk management system to improve infant nutrition services.
Infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and pediatric units receive nutrition services to ensure their optimal growth and development. Currently, milk distribution at Royal Columbian is managed by hand and requires double-checking by two nurses. The new, more efficient system will track nutritional data and storage locations, as well as identify breast milk and formula sources for follow-up, if needed. The system will be able to create milk and formula recipes to meet the individualized nutritional needs of infants. Most important, it ensures the correct milk product goes to the right infant, reducing the risk of errors and contamination.
“The new system will give us the ability to better optimize and personalize feeds,” says Stacey Rice, project leader for the redevelopment project’s Maternal, Infant, Child and Youth (MICY) program. “We will also be able to better track milk distribution and improve patient safety.”
The redevelopment project, MICY program and Digital Patient and Provider Experience (DPPE) teams considered multiple service providers and selected Timeless Milk Management Solutions, a nutrition management system provider currently used by BC Women’s and Children’s Hospital and the Provincial Milk Bank. The system will be customized for Fraser Health. Burnaby Hospital will also use this provider for their Birthing Unit and NICU when their new six-storey pavilion opens in 2025.
“The benefits and features of this system will be brand new to Fraser Health and will make a huge difference in how the MICY program provides care to its youngest patients,” says Darrel Gruenig, portfolio manager, eHealth & Business Services for DPPE.
The new system will operate from a central milk/formula preparation room in the NICU on the fifth floor of the acute care tower. Aside from preparing milk and formula recipes for feeding infants, food and dietary technicians using the system will also be able to provide complex preparations to NICU and pediatrics units across the region.