The emergency department at Vancouver General Hospital said it's hoping that major renovations completed Monday will decrease wait times and increase safety for ER staff.

Health Minister George Abbott unveiled a $2.6-million CT scanner that will reduce diagnostic time for the critically ill from 41 minutes to five minutes.

Health Minister George Abbott said the improvements in the ER will increase patient capacity.
(B.C. government)

"Canada's first-ever dual source scanner will assist care providers in better diagnosing critically ill and trauma patients who come to Vancouver General Hospital from all over the province," Abbott said.

Rapid diagnosis is crucial during the first 60 minutes after a traumatic injury, when immediate care is essential to the patient's survival, said Dr. Nestor Muller, the hospital's regional medical director of radiology.

"Because it's faster, it allows us to obtain higher quality images of the heart, allowing for much better characterization of normal and abnormal tissue and improved diagnosis," Muller said.

The renovations at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) were completed in four phases over 16 months.

An additional $1.1 million in renovations to the ER includes six new beds, increased infection control, and security to control violent patients.

Medical staff said the new beds raised patient capacity by 27 per cent,  decreasing wait times substantially.

'The department needs to be organized in a way that keeps the staff safe.'— Dr. Roy Purssell, head of VGH emergency department

Dr. Roy Purssell, the head of the VGH emergency department, said new security measures are now in place to deal with "considerable violence" occurring in the ER.

"The reason why that occurred is because patients are quite often under traumatic stress when they come to the emergency department," he said.

The hospital often deals with people who have problems with drugs and alcohol, he said.

"We have people that have psychiatric problems, so the department needs to be organized in a way that keeps the staff safe," he said.

VGH's emergency department handles 66,000 patients a year, making it the busiest ER in the province.