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An integral part of hundreds of thousands of communities worldwide are their hospitals. The engine that drives those institutions are their foundations, without which, the wheels of progress would turn very slowly. This series uncovers the ways the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation in White Rock, British Columbia connects with the community to stay ahead of health issues, challenge the norm and foster a spirit of innovation.
Thank
you
A trip to a hospital's emergency room can be stressful enough for an adult, but for a child, it's probably downright terrifying. All those unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells, when combined with needles, stitches, or other treatments, create a truly scary environment for a young person.
But a doctor in Peace Arch Hospital's emergency department is determined to change all that. Using a combination of high tech and what we might call no tech, he's transforming a potentially frightening scenario for children into something closer to an enjoyable, entertaining experience.
And he's not stopping there. This ER doctor has also been the driving force behind a simple, cost-efficient technique that reduces feelings of nausea for adult patients waiting for emergency treatment at the hospital. It's all about easing the way in the ER with puppets, headsets, and alcohol swabs.
This is the power to heal. In this series of podcasts, we'll focus on the many innovative ways PeaceArch Hospital, located in White Rock, British Columbia, Canada, has been an integral part of its community. We'll take you behind the scenes of the hospital's dynamic fundraising arm and talk to those who are instrumental in creating new initiatives to help this important healthcare facility grow and evolve along with the town it serves.
Dr. Amir Baboudi, a busy emergency room physician at Peace Arch Hospital, has developed a unique way of alleviating workplace stress by coming up with innovative ways of helping his patients reduce their own anxiety around an ER visit. And he's doing this with the full support of the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation, where he's become a familiar site as he seeks and often receives funding for his sometimes unusual always effective strategies for improved patient experiences.
In this episode, you'll be introduced to not only Dr. Baboudi, but also his infectious laughter, just one of the many ways he helps bring comfort to distressed emergency room visitors. You'll also meet Stephanie Beck, the CEO of the Hospital Foundation that has been so instrumental in turning Dr. Baboudi's inspirations into reality. Dr. Baboudi and Stephanie are joined by Power to Heal host Lance Peverly, a journalist and former editor of the Peace Arch News. and a longtime resident of the White Rock, South Surrey area.
Dr. Baboudi, you've built a bit of a reputation in our community for bringing puppets, robots, virtual reality headsets, and much more into the emergency room of Peace Arch Hospital. What's going on here?
Well, Lance, this kind of dates back to about 10 years ago. So the story is this, me and my family went to Great Wolf Lodge Hotel. And if anybody had been there, they actually created a very fun environment for kids. So it almost looks like a Vegas for kids, you know, on top of it, it has the pools, on the bottom has the arcade machine. So the kids get this magical wand and on each floor of this hotel has this quest.
So it wasn't uncommon to see kids dragging their parents at 11 at night going from from quest to quest. So that's a well, why can't we have that for the kids in our hospital? So so that's how this journey of trying to make the kids experience better started from Great Wharf Lodge 10 years ago.
That sounds amazing. That sounds almost like something they'd look forward to then, or at least not shy away from.
Yeah, you know, like typically when the kids coming to the ER, especially, they're doing some kind of a stress, either physical stress, mental stress, and then also add to the scariness of the hospital too, the strange smell, know, the weird sound for the kids. So the whole idea is that, like, what can we do to make, you know, the kids experience better?
Like what can we do to make it slightly better for the kids and actually maybe just move the pendulum and make it a bit more fun for them?
You've been quoted as wanting to create a pain-free ER especially when it comes to your youngest patients. Can you talk a bit more about that and give us some examples of how you're turning a potentially scary situation for a child into an enjoyable experience?
So again, this dates back to about eight years ago, just looking for tools that I can bring to the ER for a patient. And then one of the Christmas back then, so this is eight years ago, I bought one of these headset machines. And it's old school that you put in your phone and I got this free roller coaster app and we tried it at home and it was pretty fun.
And then I the case of this young girl that came in with a laceration or a cut on her chin and she was quite scared, rightly so. In the ER, we have medication to take pain away. Yes. that scenario, we used numbing cream. So I knew that she doesn't have pain, but she was quite scared of the situation. So I actually...
asked the parents permission that if I can use this headset on her and agreed. So I used it and she was completely immersed in this roller coaster ride.
future. He's still agreed to try out a non-medical solution.
years ago
awesome
gonna get you to go on the roller coaster ride okay? Good man!
Virtual Roller Coaster, welcome to traction therapy.
world of distraction.
Just so I'm clear, this is virtual reality, this isn't just audio, right? This isn't just music distracting or-
Just to back up, it's a headset that you wear. So back then the technology was it's in infancy. So we actually used to put our phone inside the headset and then close it. And the phone, there were these free apps. So yes, correct. So it's actually wearing this device and then physically wearing it compared to hearing it. Now, again, the...
You know, this roller coaster ride also have sounds too. So it's like visual and audio, but it's like a physical device that you.
so completely distracting from what's actually being done to them. They're focusing on that rather than any of the procedure that's being involved.
Exactly right. What we found is that when the kids are distracted so example anybody who has kids and have video games You know when the game is on the kids are gone. You can tell them coming for food or whatever they are fully immersed in it So that's what we use back then and while she was watching this I managed to show her up and the funny part Lance was that
The nurses were actually calling each other to come and watch this because she had this smile on her face with the headset on and completely like completely a different child.
So you're calming the child. imagine this has potentially calming effects for nervous parents and guardians as well.
Of course, yes. Actually, can be opposite effect too. When the parents are calm, the kids become calm. When the parents are anxious, so it's kind of a feeding back to each other. So the whole goal is to have this calming environment for both. If the parents see that the child is sitting there and smiling, they're gonna calm down too. Versus like the child is crying, we are holding them down, stuff like that. definitely.
I'm understanding that it was a visit to the Surrey Hospital with one of your two children that first inspired you to create a more child-friendly experience in the ER. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Of course. So this is about six years ago, my son actually got an infection on his neck and it was admitted to the Surrey Hospital, which is roughly about 20 minutes from us. And he had to get an intravenous to have antibiotics. And at that point I came across what's called child love specialist. So these are individuals who actually train on how to communicate with kids the effective way.
to let them know what's going to happen. And at the same time, distract them and make the whole journey fun. So I saw that while they were starting the IV, my son had this like a bubble gun. So he was spraying bubbles and smiling and laughing. And at the same time, they managed to get the IV in it. So it was quite powerful too. So I was determined to have similar service at Peace Arch.
I went after it, because PSARCH is smaller, we couldn't secure the funding for it. So I said, well, what's the next step? So managed to meet with one of the child dive specialists and actually come up with common scenarios that kids may face in our ER, like common scenarios that might be stressful or painful. So we managed to come up with five things. One of them was starting an IV, getting blood tests.
putting the child to sleep, to set their wrist up, getting a CT scan and ultrasound. And we actually wrote scenarios for it and invited one of the ventricleists to act those scenarios and teach and kind of explain to kids what each scenario means and what to expect.
Well, none of them would be particularly calming for an adult to go through. can only imagine. Just so I understand, Sur Memorial Hospital, it has a pediatric unit, correct? So I assume it has more child patients. How does that compare to Peace Arch?
Correct, yeah. So in BC we have Children's Hospital, which is in Vancouver, and then Surrey Hospital that has ER for adults and ER for kids. And actually the last update was that Surrey Hospital actually sees more kids than BC Children. So this is significant. Yeah.
I had no idea.
you'd like to do, say one of the options.
Do something fun!
Great! Here.
Which one? Freestyle.
This is one of my favorite.
you
Well, let's get into some more about how you can actually shift children's attention away from whatever treatment they're receiving in the ER. Starting with something I think I would have loved on one of my very first overnight stay at Peace Arch Hospital such a long time ago. Tell us about the interactive robot named Pepper.
So again, Pepper was one of these tools that we were searching to find for kits. And I was in Toronto in the conference and saw this robot greeting people and then brought this idea to Peace Art and managed the secure funding to buy Pepper. We use it in various projects, but one of them was to kind of explain to
Children, know similar stuff like what to expect where the x-ray is with ultrasound stuff like that
Well, who writes Pepper's scripts? Like, how do you come up with the explanation for what they're going to tell the child?
Yeah, so the way that is set up each group that was looking to do project with Pepper, it was very simple. depending on what project Pepper was going to be involved in, we wrote what Pepper going to say. And then on this robot's chest, there's actually a screen that they can show like it has audio, visual, you can put in videos, stuff like that. So whoever was involved in doing
project that required Pepper were also involved in creating that scenario for them.
Did you involve yourself in it then? Did you get to write some of the dialogue that Pepper would say?
Yes, some of them. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Do you recall what Pepper the robot cost in the beginning?
Yeah, so this goes back, I think about eight years ago and back then, I think was around maybe between 10 to 20,000. So now things are cheaper and much more advanced now.
Well, this sounds like a good time to bring Stephanie Beck, the CEO of the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation into the conversation. Stephanie, the foundation has funded several of Dr. Baboudi's initiatives, including Pepper the Robot and the virtual reality headsets. I'm intrigued by your support for these projects as most of the conversations we've had on this podcast are about raising money for equipment or initiatives with clear medical applications. What did you see in these requests that align with the foundation's missions and goals?
Thanks. Thanks for having me on today. So yeah, we first started working with Amir a number of years ago with a number of his projects. And what we really like about Dr. Baboudi's projects is they're clearly very innovative and they are working to make our patients feel more relaxed during their procedures in the ER. And certainly even though
Peace Arch Hospital doesn't have a pediatrics unit. 20 % of the patients in our ER are pediatric patients. So when you have an emergency at home, you will most likely go to the nearest ER. So the general public usually is not informed enough to know, for instance, that Suri has a pediatric ER specifically and that Peace Arch doesn't. When you're in an emergency situation, you just want to get your child the help as quick as possible.
Yeah.
To the closest hospital. So consequently, 20 % of the patients that we're seeing in ER are pediatrics. So we don't have a pediatric specific ER, but we do have emergency room physicians who work with children as well. And Amir is one of them who's very passionate about being able to help the kids that do come to our ER and make sure that they're as comfortable as possible.
And a number of these initiatives are very helpful to our patients to decrease the stress that they are experiencing. As Dr. Baboudi mentioned, know, people are under emotional stress, physical stress, mental stress. They're feeling very vulnerable when they're coming into the ER. So if we can get those kids feeling comfortable and be able to provide those procedures or those treatments, the stitches, whatever it is they need, it helps them.
recover quicker and we're able to hopefully get them back home where they can recover appropriately. So this is always something that we're interested in is the innovation behind Amir's ideas and how to make that patient experience the best it can be.
I'm told it comes from the Hospital Foundation's Healthy Communities grant? Yes. What is this program and who can apply for these grants?
Yeah, so Peace Arch Hospital Foundation, our full name is actually Peace Arch Hospital and Community Health Foundation. So we have a granting program into the community where we want to make sure that we are investing in preventative health care in our community. We want you to use the hospital as the last resort. You know, when you have an acute condition, that's when you come to the hospital.
We're hoping that by investing in preventative care in the community that we can treat a number of conditions or chronic conditions in the community so that people don't have to access our acute care services. So we grant to those organizations that do a lot of work in the space of wellness and health in the community.
But those grants can also be accessed by our physicians and our medical staff as well for innovative programs within the hospital. And that's where Dr. Baboudi comes in. He has applied for a number of our grants to get the seed funding for some of these projects off the ground in our ER and in other spaces in our hospital as well. So we're happy to fund those projects with him.
An old nurse's trick for treating nausea is being used to help emergency room patients. New vending machines have been in the White Rock Hospital that dispense isopropyl alcohol water to relieve patients. Joining us on this is...
The Sarge
been installed.
is
you
One of the most surprising projects I've heard being introduced for the comfort of the ER patients is the installation of isopropyl alcohol swab dispenser to counteract nausea. I had no idea there was a connection between one and the other. Dr. Maboudi, can you tell us how alcohol swabs make nauseated people feel better?
Well, Lance, don't feel bad for not knowing that because some of my colleagues don't know that either. So now about a year ago, I joined to do this quality improvement course. And part of this course was to bring a project and this course gonna help you with your project, teach you how to do it and provide some funding for it. And at that time, our ER
wait time was quite high and I was looking for ways that patient can improve at least some of their symptoms independent of the staff. Because sometimes we were also short of staff too. So after doing a research, I came across significant number of article that looked at when the patient smells isopropyl alcohol or the swabs that we use to cleanse the skin before doing a blood test, their symptoms
improved. Now this also dates back to many years ago when anesthesiologists used this technique for the post-op nausea and vomiting symptoms. And about two years ago, there was another study came from ER that showed when providing this to patient, their symptoms improved and their satisfaction goes up. So now I had the background research of that.
that I found and the idea was to can we provide that in our hospital? Do our patients feel the same as the previous research? And are there techniques that we can employ that make them use it independently of the staff, which means they don't need to find a nurse or a physician to ask for these treatments. So,
We started this project initially targeting patient at the triage, is when the patient first arrives in our ER. And when the triage nurse comes across a patient who one of their symptoms is nausea and vomiting, they gave them the alcohol swab and a small pamphlet of information and also rating their symptoms before and after. We found majority of patients who use the swab
their symptoms improved. So about 85 % who used it, they noticed that there's the improvement of the symptoms. 50 % of them noticed significant improvement. So then the next phase of this project was to, can we improve the access? So we don't want to rely on the nurse, especially the triage nurse who's quite busy. What can we do to improve the access? So initially we put out these posters around the ER waiting rooms and all the rooms with the
with some of these swabs attached to the posters. And we were trying to find out which area of the ER do we like the hotspots or the area that these swabs get collected the most. And we identified about eight spots and the majority of them are in our waiting room. Then the next step was that, okay, how can we make it maybe more fun and user friendly? So.
With the help of the foundation, we managed to actually install a couple of very small vending machines and free that patients can actually go to it, turn the handle, one of these swabs, and there's also a small card that falls with it and they can use it on their own while they're
No funding for these vending machines that wasn't available through Fraser Health?
So because this was like a project, so the quality improvement course was independent of visual health. Now, a lot of the funding that we had for the project went for the Collectivity Data part.
I see. To prove that it actually did have an effect and it was freeing up staff time and all the things that will benefit. Correct. All hospitals really. Yeah. Well, when you went to Stephanie and her hospital foundation team with your proposal for these alcohol swab dispensers, what kind of reaction did you get?
Okay, so me and Stephanie have like a very simple relationship. really, I
She say it's you again? Is that how this one started?
Stephanie said, well, not you again.
I I emailed Stephanie and then a few minutes later she said yes, we are in. that was actually another motivation for me to continue with it knowing that when the project comes to a point that needs extra support, our foundation is there to provide that.
Okay. And Stephanie, you can vouch for this. This was the conversation.
Yeah, it was, was. You know, yeah, we've partnered with Amir on a number of projects and I've gotten to know his style over the last little while. He's not a paperwork kind of guy. So he comes to me with the idea and then I do the paperwork around it and get the money for him to be able to get these projects off the ground. But I mean, we of course are really interested in this project because, you know, it saves nurses time. We know that nurses are
love it.
stressed and we didn't have enough nurses in the ER and I can personally vouch that I have used MR's research on this and that I have used those alcohol swabs not while I was in the ER but elsewhere. I was on a plane last week and I actually had an alcohol swab was not feeling well used it and it does actually remarkably clear up your system. It's very quick yeah and I always have that in the back of my mind if I'm feeling Amir says to sniff the alcohol.
was it.
Well, be clear, we don't want to have anybody sniffing alcohol unsupervised or unsafely. This sounds so potentially troublesome. The smelling of alcohol swabs to fight nausea is for only adult patients.
It works.
At this point, yes, but having said that, Lance, there has been study done on kids and there's currently one going to. So the previous study showed that it actually works in kids too, but the kids don't like the smell. So when we did our project at PSARCH, we pretty much said non-pregnant adults can use it. And part of it is because there hasn't been much study done on pregnant
patient and this kind of treatment and in kids even though it works they just don't like the smell of it.
When Amir brought the project to me as well, he talked about how when you're a patient in the ER and you're feeling nausea, you know, what you would normally do is wave down the nurse. The nurse would understand that you're feeling nauseous. Then the nurse would have to go find a doctor to be able to give you some gravel. The gravel costs, I can't remember what you had told me Amir, but the gravel costs, I don't know, a dollar or something like that for the pill. And then, you know, the nurse has to go find the patient again and take it.
Whereas the isopropyl alcohol swipes are much less expensive and they're very immediate for the patient as well, right? And it's actually a cost savings in the end for the health authority as well. So it's like a win-win.
You
But I want to bring it back to children for a moment here. I would be remiss if I didn't mention another of your projects intended to take away children's fears of a hospital visit. I'm told there are videos featuring a ventriloquist and a big bird named McGraw. Tell us about those.
Yeah, so this actually tied to the previous study that looking to create this common scenario for kids. That coming to the yard, let's say the child needs a lab test or having an IV inserted. So the ventricleist and the puppet, her puppet name was Meghra. We actually had previous projects with her too and she came in with her puppet and taught
some of our staff how to use puppets for kids. So our staff can create this scenario for the kids. This is prior to having these videos. Yes. Yeah. So we again went to Stephanie and asked her for funding for this project. And then, and she said again, not you again, Amir. then 20 seconds later the email came back. So we managed to create five
videos and now we are in the midst of actually translating those videos to five other languages. We do get kids who may not speak English and we also want them to benefit from these projects.
These projects seem to exist in a space where medical needs, technology and innovation all meet. Do get lot of satisfaction when all these elements come together in your work?
Yes, Lance. Yes.
I just imagine it would be so enjoyable for somebody who's dealing with 99 % of the things they're dealing with have a medical solution, but just to have that little break and see the child's faces, you're making a difference would be just so, so wonderful.
Yeah, correct. You know, some people like to go on Hawaii vacation for their calm and chill times. Even though I like that too, but I get more mental satisfaction on these kinds of projects, you know, that involve medicine, technology and kind of thinking out of the box. And I was telling my friends, you know, I was trying to explain like, what is that feeling like? And I said, well,
Just imagine the night prior to you wanting to go to your best trip in your life. You you're kind of excited, you can't sleep. I get that feeling when I have a meeting about these projects, you know. So when I'm trying to call Stephanie, you know, the night before.
You
and then it all comes together.
That's right! Yes!
Well, Stephanie, the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation was the first to start implementing many of Dr. Maboudi's programs, and you actively encourage other physicians and medical staff to reach out with their ideas. My understanding is that interesting proposals won't be met with a lot of hoops to jump through in terms of getting reviewed and possibly funded. Take us through the process. What sort of initiatives catch your attention?
Well, it's actually quite a simple process for our physicians to access. Really what's harder is to get the physicians to know that there is a process to access this kind of funding for their innovative projects. But certainly you can simply go online to our website under grants and there's a whole granting section just for Peace Arch Hospital staff.
medical staff and hospital staff and our medical technicians to be able to access that form. It's a very simple form. It's a couple of pages. You you fill out your idea and your budget and get some of the approvals, making sure that we can work with Fraser Health to actually implement the project. Because again, the foundation is separate from Fraser Health. We are a separate entity and we have to work within their guidelines as well.
to make sure that the project that's implemented meets with all of their guidelines and et cetera. So certainly it's a fairly simple step to be able to do that. And we do have funding ongoing for these innovative projects.
when it's Amir who's giving me a phone call, I know that he and I just usually talk about the project and I get the answers to those questions that are on the form and I just fill out the form for him and get the approvals and then we get going on whatever it is that needs to happen at our site to make that experience better for our patients.
you
you
Final question for Dr. Baboudi. What are some of the new projects you're developing to make the patient experience at PeaceArch even better?
Well, Lance, how much time do we have? Okay, so I can tell you about another three of the, you know, I find it very, very exciting. So one of the project is we are actually, so when the patient presents with head bleed, at times we need to remove that blood. And typically process is that patient needs to be sedated,
Hahaha
go to the operating room and then to this significant amount of time for the procedure to happen. So I was driving to work one day and I was listening to the common podcast called EMRAP for physicians. And then there was a case that they talked about that using this drill. So in our ER and most of the ER, we have this needle and a drill.
that we typically use it when the patient come in either in a trauma or need fluid or blood and it's very hard to get an IV access. We actually drill this needle into their lower leg bone and then through that we can give them fluid and medication. And then this topic on the podcast said that they actually use that drill to drill the skull and evacuate the blood. So I thought that that's actually like a
So I contacted one of my colleagues at another hospital who's a neurosurgeon, Dr. Heron, and then she thought, well, it's actually, it may not be a bad idea to try it. So fast forward to now, we tried it on 50 plus patient and it showed a couple of things. One of them was that when we use this drill that we all have it in our ER versus the common surgery,
the time to the treatment to drill the skull is actually about a minute compared to like 20 minutes of OR time. And the immediate post drilling when we do a CT to see if the blood is completely gone, we actually noticed that the post-op side effect of it is significantly less too. So there's a paper that's going to come soon regarding this, that kind of
I don't want to use the game changer word, it might be a game changer in that kind of scenario.
Well, to cost cutting and speeding up the process. I mean, that only benefits the patient. That only benefits everybody.
Exactly right. Yeah. So that's, I find it pretty exciting. So my other project is that because we tend to see more patient in actually hallway chairs compared to actual bed, sometimes we need to modify our equipment too. So one of them that we modified is when someone comes here with the broken wrist, we need to pull it.
And there two ways of doing it. One of the ways is that we put him to sleep and then pull on it. Other way that we actually freeze the area that's broken and then put it on the trap called finger trap. The challenge with the finger trap is that patient needs the bed. So you still have...
They can't do it in the chair then they can't it. That's exactly right.
So now we actually modify this finger trap technique that can be utilized while patients sitting. And this is in collaboration with UBC Biomedical Engineering. So that's pretty exciting. And the last one is whenever patients come in cardiac arrest, we need to check their pulse every two minutes after doing a CPR.
But if you look at all the technology that I have now, we're still using these two fingers to check the pulse. And there's significant downside with that. And what we found is that the longer we're checking the pulse, the higher the mortality is. So now we're actually creating a device that using the, it's called PPG, which is very similar to the watches that give you oxygen level.
they'll be actually using that to find this pulse significantly faster during the cardiac arrest.
That is amazing. That it's life-saving. Well, I've got to say the issues that you've brought up here are not issues I've had in my professional life. I'm not sure about other people listening right now, but it sounds like you, you're just making such a difference in the world. So thank you. The other thing I've got to say is as a parent, when my children were very young, take them to the drop in the clinic or the, to the hospital. And oftentimes I would find the, healthcare worker.
Thanks.
asking me, talking to me. And then over time, I noticed that more and more physicians were talking directly to my children. And it sounds like you've mastered that. It sounds like all the focus is on the children. It's going to be calm already. So thank you for that. I'd like to thank you both for taking the time to talk to us today. Amazing conversation. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Power to Heal podcast presented by Peace Arch Hospital Foundation in White Rock, British Columbia takes you behind the scenes of an innovative hospital foundation and introduces you to the team who find new and sometimes surprising ways to engage with the local community and help fund the best health care possible in the region. Since 1988, the foundation has raised over $250 million for capital projects, medical equipment, and community health programs.
Their passionate and caring team's number one priority is the prudent stewardship of your gifts and the resulting positive impact on patients and medical staff at Peace Arch Hospital and the entire White Rock South Surrey community. Peace Arch Hospital Foundation, where innovation comes to life in so many ways.
The simple act of giving is truly transformational. Every dollar we receive is enhancing health care in this community, whether it's supporting our capital infrastructure, the purchase of essential medical equipment, or funding a wellness program like stroke recovery or a children's club to encourage healthy habits and active play. Our wide range of giving options includes monthly donations, an increasingly popular and convenient choice that makes the greatest impact on your community hospital.
You just sign up once and the rest is automatic. And that includes receiving a consolidated tax receipt at the end of the year. But no matter what giving option you choose, it all matters and it all makes a difference.
Be sure to subscribe to Power to Heal wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Each episode brings you inspiring stories about the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation and its innovative approach to supporting better healthcare throughout the White Rock South Surrey community. Thanks for listening.
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for watching.
you