Your Stay at the Hospital

Your doctor determines the right diet, medicines, tests and treatments for you. If you have an advance directive your care team will confirm that with you.

Much of your care takes place in your hospital room.

Services and tests. Certain tests use special equipment. You’ll be transported by stretcher or wheelchair to specific locations in the hospital for services such as:

• Cardiopulmonary testing
• Nuclear medicine
• Rehabilitative services
• X-rays

Medicines. Your doctor prescribes all medications you need while you’re in the hospital. A nurse ensures you get the right medicine, in the right dose at the right time. The BID Plymouth pharmacy supplies the medicines you need.

Your hospital care team shares all test and treatment results with your doctor so they can discuss them with you.

Your inpatient care team includes many people, such as doctors, food service workers, hospitalists, housekeeping, nurses, technicians and transport specialists.

At BID Plymouth, we require all hospital staff to wear badges that show their name, position and photo identification.

Feel free to ask staff members about their jobs when you meet them.

If you need urgent help at any time, use the nurse intercom call system attached to your bed, or use the emergency call button in the bathroom. A patient care team member will respond right away.

If you have questions about your care, please talk to your doctor, nurse or another member of your care team. To contact a patient advocate, call 508-830-2521. You can also learn more about our Ethics Support Services.

If you don’t speak English, use American Sign Language or need help communicating with us, we can provide an interpreter or other language assistance.

A case manager or social worker may contact you. Our case managers help you and your family access resources during and after your hospital stay.

At BID Plymouth, we believe in caring for the whole person. Please ask about our spiritual care services.

We’re here to ease your pain and keep you as comfortable as possible. We assess your pain and find the best way to manage it throughout your stay.

We regularly ask you to evaluate your level of pain on a scale of zero to 10. We adjust your pain management plan based on your response, symptoms and vital signs.

If your pain gets worse, tell your care team right away.

We use Bedside Medication Verification (BMV) for your safety. To make sure you get the right medicine at the right dose, we use a bar code scanning process.

You wear a wristband for identification purposes. Your nurse scans the wristband and the bar code on your medicine with a handheld bar scanner. Once a match is confirmed, you can receive your medicine.

Talk to your care team if you have questions about our BMV system.

Our patient beds operate electronically. A member of your care team will show you how to safely operate the bed. Every bed includes bed rails to help you move while in bed.

Hospital beds differ from your bed at home. They are higher and narrower. Ask a member of your care team for help if you need to change the bed rail position or get up for any reason.

At BID Plymouth, we provide private and semi-private rooms. Most rooms have private bathrooms.

We strive to give you an attractive, clean, comfortable and safe environment. To reduce our impact on the environment, we change linens every other day, unless needed sooner.

Please contact our housekeeping team with any requests. Use the information on the housekeeping card in your room.

We provide a daily book mobile. A craft cart visits patient rooms on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The Craft Cart provides craft kits, crossword puzzles, playing cards, word games and kits to make simple crafts for you and your family. The BID Plymouth Club and volunteers staff these services.

Patient rooms are equipped with cable-connected color televisions with closed captioning capability and one FM radio station. A private company manages the TV service. Find information about the charges for TV service in your room.

BID Plymouth is a non-smoking facility. Smoking is not permitted anywhere inside or on the hospital grounds.

At BID Plymouth we offer informational videos for you or your family. You can watch these in your hospital room. These videos cover many topics. You can access the videos in the On-Demand Video System through your hospital room TV.

To use the On-Demand Video System, follow these instructions:

1. Turn on the television in your room and tune to channel 40.
2. Dial ext. 4999 from the phone in your room.
3. Follow the recorded voice prompts for your video selection.
4. The recording will ask for your extension, which is the four-digit number that should be posted in your room. The recording also will ask for a three-digit video number — please choose from the following:

Heart Related Topics

• 100 Coping with Heart Illness (patient issues)
• 101 Coping with Heart Illness (couples issues)
• 102 Coping with Heart Illness (family issues)
• 111 Women and Heart Disease
• 112 Exercise and Heart Failure Patients

Pulmonary Topics

• 135 Breathing Retraining and Pulmonary Disease

Diabetes Topics

• 150 Type I Diabetes
• 151 Type II Diabetes
• 152 Sick Day Management
• 153 Diabetes Complications
• 154 Lilly Insulin Pen

New Parent Topics

• 170 Breastfeeding How-to
• 171 Newborn: Starting Out Safe
• 172 Home Before You Know It

Endoscopic Topics

• 277 Colorectal Cancer

More selections are added as they become available. If you have questions or comments about the system’s operation, talk to your care team.