Royal Inland Hospital provides acute level care to Kamloops and the surrounding region. But, what happens when a patient is ready to leave the hospital but not quite ready to go home? Or requires ongoing outpatient care? What other services and clinics are available for patients to prevent a return visit to the hospital?

These questions are an important part of the continuum of care provided by Interior Health in Kamloops. Working with RIH staff and our donors, the Foundation is committed to ensuring patients receive the care they need at the hospital, but we know the road to recovery can be long and often extends beyond a stay at RIH.

There are a wide variety of outpatient clinics both in the community and at RIH that provide patients with important care that reduces the number of patients that require a trip to the Emergency Department or need to be re-admitted to RIH. One of these critical outpatient clinics, located in the Clinical Services Building, is the Infectious Disease (ID) Clinic led by Dr. Kevin Laupland, an Intensivist and Infectious Diseases specialist, who launched the Clinic in 2014 with a small team that included Joyce Bader, Outpatient Parenteral Therapy (OPT) Coordinator and pharmacists Ayesha Hassan and Anna Folk. Since then, the Infectious Diseases Clinic and OPT team has grown quickly and in 2016 more than 1,000 patients were managed by the team. A second Infectious Diseases specialist, Dr. Elizabeth Parfitt, joined in 2015 and two Registered Nurses (RNs), and a pharmacy team contribute to the provision of comprehensive ID services.

The ID Clinic and OPT program has had a tremendous impact on the hospital and most importantly, is improving the quality of life for many of their patients. Patients who are referred to the ID Clinic are less likely to go to the Emergency Department with infections and inpatients are able to be discharged earlier and have their therapy on an outpatient basis. Patients are able to start treatments earlier, avoiding hospital admission and have fewer unnecessary or longer-term IV therapy treatments due to the specialized assessment by the multidisciplinary team.

Last year, the ID Clinic received its first significant donation from a grateful patient, Kenneth Strand, who wanted to invest in the long-term success of the clinic. Kenneth along with his wife, Elna, appreciated the care he received from Dr. Laupland and directed their gift to the ID Clinic to help ensure they have the tools and resources they need to provide patient focussed, high-quality care.
“The team is very grateful for Kenneth and Elna’s support,” explains Dr. Laupland. “To have a patient show their gratitude with a donation designated to the ID Clinic is a huge compliment to our team and will ultimately help us provide even more services and care for our patients.”