New St. Paul's

Inside the new St. Paul’s Hospital: Emergency patient room  

Tanya Campbell, senior project and change management lead on the new St. Paul’s Hospital Project.

Patient rooms at the new St. Paul’s Hospital Emergency Department are designed to minimize infections, maximize privacy, and improve the patient experience.

All patient rooms in the Emergency Department (ED) will be single-patient rooms, helping to provide patients with more privacy – enhancing their comfort, dignity, and ability to rest in a calmer and quieter environment.  

As we’ve designed new physical spaces, we’re also using this opportunity to transform the way we deliver care so it’s more integrated and patient-centred.

Watch: Tanya Campbell, senior project and change management lead on the New St. Paul’s Hospital Project, gives a tour of an Emergency patient room. Details are subject to change


Currently, the ED is organized by acuity, meaning the seriousness of a patient’s illness or injury. Upon arrival, patients are moved to a specific zone in the ED that treats their level of acuity, so low-acuity patients are treated in one area, and higher-acuity patients are in another. Patients may need to be moved around if more acute patients arrive or if different equipment is required.

Our future ED will use a ‘4-pod’ model, where each pod has patient rooms, a variety of care spaces and a waiting room. Each pod will treat all levels of acuity – it’s like having four mini-emergency departments. This will help improve the patient flow within the ED, and it gives teams more flexibility to respond to the demand in services.

Under this new model, medical teams and patients can stay within the pod they have been assigned to. Patients will be cared for by the same team throughout most of their stay, helping to improve the patient’s overall experience. Planning is well underway to trial this new model of care at the current St. Paul’s Hospital!

For enhanced infection control purposes, each room within a pod will have solid walls and sliding glass doors instead of curtains. Rooms will also have enough space and flexibility for staff to bring in any necessary equipment such as casting carts to the patient rather than moving the patient to a casting room. In other words, care will come to patients, rather than the patients having to move to where care is provided.

All patient rooms will also feature:

  • A wall-mounted computer
  • Exam lights
  • A patient lift
  • Ample outlets for staff to plug in equipment or patients to charge their phone
  • A chair and coat hook for family
  • Hand-washing sink for staff and family
  • A digital room display outside the door at each room, which will communicate vital patient information to staff, such as isolation precautions, language needs or dietary restrictions 

What are mock rooms? Mock rooms are life-size model mock-ups of key spaces in the new St. Paul’s Hospital. They are used to fine-tune designs and catch any issues before the hospital is built. Designs are subject to change. Want to watch more mock room tours?  Click here.