How to Prepare and What to Expect
Before you come stay at our facility, we want to offer some information that may help you prepare to be here and know what you might expect when you arrive.
Valuables
You may want to have a few personal items with you during your stay. Bringing your own bathrobe, nightgown or pajamas, your slippers and toilet articles may help make you more comfortable. Please ask your caregiver for other things to make your stay easier.
Sky Lakes Medical Center Safety and Security officers can put your valuables in a safe. We encourage you NOT to bring personal valuables, credit cards, cash or jewelry to the hospital.
Ask your nurse for more information.
Medications from Home
You generally will want to leave your prescription medications at home. Your doctor may allow you to bring your medications to the hospital if, of example, the Sky Lakes Medical Center Pharmacy does not carry a particular medication you need. Be sure to remind your healthcare team of the exception so they can help you stay on your medication schedule while you’re here.
DO NOT take any medications, herbal supplements or vitamins that you may have brought with you from home without first speaking with your physician, nurse or a hospital pharmacist.
Unless your doctor wants you to take your own medications during your hospital stay, you will want to have us keep them in our Pharmacy while you are here. They will be returned to you when your stay is over. Your nurse can help make the proper arrangements.
Note: To provide you the best care possible, your physician, nurse and hospital pharmacist need to know the names and the dosages of the medicines you take at home and how often you take them. That’s why it’s important to have an accurate list of the medications – prescriptions, over-the- counter medications, vitamins and herbals – you routinely take. You may want to ask a family member or a friend to help you gather that information or bring your medication bottles from home.
Smoking
Sky Lakes Medical Center is a non-smoking facility. Smoking is not allowed.
Personal Electrical Devices
To help maintain a safe environment for our patients, visitors and staff. Sky Lakes Medical Center strongly discourages the use of personal electrical devices such as radios, razors, and hair dryers.
Electrically heated devices such as heating pads are not allowed because of increased risk of burns and fire.
Your Safety and Security
Your illness may make you weaker than you might expect. The effects of surgery or the side effects of medications may cause you to be confused or disoriented. Your safety is of utmost concern to us, so we suggest the following guidelines:
• Always follow instructions from you doctor and nurses;
• Use the call button when you need help;
• Check with your nurse before changing the position of your bed because your doctor may have specific reasons for your bed position;
• Ask for help when getting in and out of bed. Get out of bed slowly and rest on the side of the bed before you stand up.
The side rails on your bed may be up after surgery or when certain medications are used. Call your nurse to have them lowered. You may injure yourself if you try to climb over them.
Use the handrails in the bathroom to help support and steady you.
Hospital rules require you to wear slippers when you are out of bed. Walking in socks or bare feet can be unsafe.
Your stay - Help us help you
We try to keep the daily routine for your care as patient friendly as we can.
A member of your healthcare team will need to check your vital signs – temperature, blood pressure, respiration and the like – on a routine basis. The checks may also be done at night. Depending on your condition, your doctor may ask that your vital signs be checked frequently. We will try to limit how often you have to be awakened.
Please let your nurse know immediately if you are:
• In pain;
• Too hot or too cold;
• Hungry or thirsty;
• Receiving too many visitors;
• Not compatible with a roommate.
We want your Sky Lakes Medical Center experience to be as positive as we can make it.
Pain management Are you in pain?
As a patient, you can expect:
• Information about pain and pain-relief measures;
• Concerned staff committed to pain prevention and management;
• Health professionals who respond quickly to reports of pain;
• Reports of pain will be believed, and
• State-of-the-art pain management.
Your Hospital Team
Medical care: Your doctor is a member of a select, highly qualified hospital staff and is responsible for your clinical treatment here. Your doctor will initiate laboratory exams, medications and prescriptions, diet and special treatments. Your doctor is the best person to ask questions regarding your care plan.
Your physician will bill you for professional services. That bill is separate from your hospital bill.
Your care team: Your nurses will spend more time with you than any other member of the healthcare team. A manager who is a registered nurse directs nursing care for each floor. Working with the manager are other registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and certified nursing assistants.
You may also see respiratory therapists, physical, occupational or speech therapists, pharmacists, X-ray technicians and others who are also part of the healthcare team. Together they will plan and provide safe, high-quality and personalized care under the guidance of your physician.
Resource Management: The Resource Management Department staff can assist you and your family with adjusting to medical or personal problems related to your illness, injury and hospitalization. Planning for continued care after your discharge, obtaining equipment or services you will need at home, or helping with placement in a facility offering an alternative level or care, whether short- or long-term, are some of the ways the department can help. Telephone 274-6282 for more information.
Pharmacy: Sky Lakes Medical Center’s professional pharmacists and pharmacy technicians take care of medication orders, provide drug information, and prepare and dispense medication for patients.
The pharmacy is able to fill prescriptions on a cash basis only. Sky Lakes Medical Center staff will be happy to call your retail pharmacy to have your prescriptions filled.
Newspapers
Sky Lakes Medical Center Guild volunteers deliver complimentary copies of the Klamath Falls Herald and News newspaper daily. Every effort is made to ensure that patient rooms receive a copy of the newspaper.
Please let your care provider know if you did not get a paper and wish to have one.
Mail and Flowers
Few things can brighten your hospital room like mail and flowers. Sky Lakes Medical Center volunteers will deliver flowers to your room within minutes after they arrive from the florist. Note: Flowers can be delivered to patients in CCU rooms at the discretion of the nursing staff on a patient-by-patient basis. If you have already left the hospital, the flowers will be returned to the florist for delivery to your home.
Sky Lakes Medical Center volunteers will deliver mail to your room. If you have already left the hospital, the mail will be forwarded to your home.
Organ Donation
Ask your nurse or doctor about how you can be a tissue or organ donor.
RV Parking
A parking area for recreational vehicles is available to patients and their families free of charge. It is located between the Hugh Currin House and the medical offices building just south of the Family Birth Center entrance on the south side of the hospital.
Call the Sky Lakes Cancer Treatment Center, 274-4171, for more information.
Going Home/Discharge
When your physician determines it is time for you to leave the hospital, a discharge order will be written. You could be discharged to your home, or transferred to another care facility.
If you are going home, you should make arrangements at that time with a relative or friend to pick you up.
On the day you leave the hospital, your nursing staff will do a final physical assessment and give you instructions regarding activities, medications and other important information.
Discharge planning begins when you are admitted to the hospital and will be concluded prior to your departure. The professionals in Sky Lakes Medical Center’s Resource Management Department will work with you and your family or friends to make necessary arrangements for continued medical or nursing care after you leave.
Resource Management Department staff also can help you and your family adjust to medical or personal problems related to your illness, injury or hospitalization. Planning for continued care after your discharge, obtaining equipment or services you will need at home, or helping with placement in a facility offering an alternative level of care, whether short- or long-term, are some of the ways the department can help.
Call 274-6282 for more information.
Your nurse can answer questions regarding your discharge.
Personal belongings
Collect all of your belongings and double-check closets and drawers. If you have anything stored in the hospital’s secure area, call the Safety and Security Office, extension 3637, and an officer will bring your belongings to you.
Transportation service
When you are ready to leave, a Guild volunteer will take you to the front entrance and help you into your vehicle.
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