BLOOMINGDALE, Ill.—In a first for Northwestern Medicine, the renovation of a medical office building (MOB) in Bloomingdale, features prefabricated modular exam rooms. More than 70 exam rooms are being built as pods off-site in an assembly-line fashion and delivered nearly complete to the medical office building construction site, where they are slid into place for final connections.

The project is a complete renovation of over 50,000 square feet in an existing building at 231-235 S. Gary Avenue. The space will house a Northwestern Medicine Immediate Care, Physical Therapy and Diagnostic Imaging; as well as Northwestern Medicine Regional Medical Group specialties, including Primary Care, Cardiology, Endocrinology, Orthopedics and Gastroenterology. Cannon Design is the architect of record. Walsh Construction is the General Contractor.

The 70+ exam rooms are being mass produced in an assembly line at the Hill Mechanical shop in Franklin Park, Illinois, in conjunction with Walsh Construction. The pods are 95% completed at the off-site shop with drywall, insulation, ceiling tiles, cabinets, sinks, electrical wiring and plumbing. Nearly all the finishing touches are completed as well, including tile, paint, wallcovering, and millwork. Computer arms, blood pressure monitoring equipment, Sharps needle containers, and coat hooks are attached to the walls before delivery.

“The main advantage of modular pod construction is a more advantageous speed-to-market solution for project delivery, as well as the efficiency, safety and quality control of building in a controlled environment compared to a traditional construction setting,” said Dan Callaghan, CE, MBA, project manager, Planning & Construction, Northwestern Medicine.

The pods are delivered to the Bloomingdale building three at a time on a flat-bed truck, where a crane lifts them onto a loading dock. The pods are pushed into place using industrial dollies, and all electrical, plumbing and vents are connected. Once all are in place, exterior drywall and flooring is completed, along with a few final touches such as hanging doors.

The building of the modular units is happening at the same time as the on-site development work, which also speeds up the construction process. Callaghan estimates the project will be finished approximately four weeks faster compared to traditional construction, and if it wasn’t a phased project due to the need to continue offering medical services on the site during construction, the modular pods would have saved substantially more time.

While prefabricated modular units are more common in the hospitality industry, Northwestern Medicine Director of Planning & Construction Charles Cloutier says the process is gaining traction in the healthcare industry. One reason is the ability to standardize all the exam rooms.

“It is very helpful for medical providers to be able to walk into any exam room and know exactly where everything is, and what to expect,” said Cloutier. “Standardization also helps significantly with flexibility allowing different specialties to use the same exam rooms depending on volume, which makes our real estate footprints more efficient.”

Phase one construction of the Bloomingdale Medical Office Building project will be completed in March of 2021 with the new Immediate Care opening. Phase two construction will be completed in October 2021, with the remainder of the building taking occupancy.

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HERSHEY, Pa. — Work recently began at the site of a new Penn State Health acute care hospital in Cumberland County that will bring more local health care choice and hundreds of high-quality jobs to the region.

The Penn State Health Board of Directors recently approved plans for Penn State Health Hampden Medical Center while an official groundbreaking event is slated for late March.

Hampden Medical Center will sit on 44 acres, located within the heart of one of the fastest growing counties in Pennsylvania.

The three-story, 300,000-square-foot facility will provide residents of Cumberland and Perry counties, as well as the broader Harrisburg region, access to the high-quality, comprehensive, primary and specialty care services of Penn State Health without having to drive to Hershey.

The $200 million facility includes 108 private inpatient beds, an emergency department, physician offices, various specialty inpatient services, imaging and lab services and complete medical and surgical capabilities.

The hospital site will also feature an attached outpatient medical office building which will include an open medical staff, with a plan to develop collaborative programs between Penn State Health faculty physicians and private community providers.

The construction process is expected to bring about 600 jobs; and once operational, the hospital will initially employ 650 people, with a planned increase over the first three years to about 1,000 employees.

This new facility will ultimately help Penn State Health and Highmark Health deliver on their commitment to build a regional care network that ensures people in the communities they jointly serve are within 10 minutes of Penn State Health primary care providers, 20 minutes of specialty care providers and 30 minutes of a Penn State Health acute care facility.

Penn State Health is partnering with Cannon Design and Barton Malow Alexander for completion of this project, which is slated for summer 2021.

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LA JOLLA, Calif. — The new Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health in La Jolla opened on Nov. 20, 2016. Construction began in 2012, and the center was named in recognition of a $75 million gift from the Joan and Irwin Jacobs family. The 245-bed new medical center brings cutting-edge technology for cancer treatment and other specialty care.

The 509,500-square-foot 10-story facility had a budget of $943 million. Architecture and interior design were provided as a collaboration between the Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design in Los Angeles and Cannon Design’s Los Angeles Office. The general contractor was Kitchell Contractors out of their San Diego and Phoenix, Ariz. offices.

The Jacobs Medical Center will contribute to meet the healthcare needs of San Diego County — San Diego is California’s second-most populated city, with 3.3 million residents, and 17 percent fewer acute-care beds per 100,000 residents compared to the statewide average, according to a statement. The medical center includes three specialty centers: one for women and infants, a cancer center, and an advanced surgery center.

The design team created over 60 design concepts with a wide range of configurations and relationships to other buildings on the campus throughout the process, according to William D. Hamilton, AIA, principal at Cannon Design. “The scheme continually changed over time, with the footprint and building envelope being driven by the number of beds per unit, and the number of rooms with windows and daylight defining the floorplate.”

The surgical center has 14 operating rooms with an advanced surgical suite of four operating rooms. The center also has an MRI and 64-slice CT scanner for real-time imaging. The medical center houses a cancer center with 108 beds in addition to its 245 acute-care beds. There is an entire floor in the cancer center dedicated to blood and bone marrow transplant surgery and recovery. One of the state-of-the-art features of the cancer center is a floor that receives specially filtered air to help protect patients with compromised immune systems, according to a statement.

The hospital also houses an intensive-care unit with 36 beds in family-friendly rooms, 36 postpartum beds and a 52-room, neonatal intensive-care unit. Each room in the birth center has its own built-in birthing tub. There is even a “serenity room” in the hospital, beautifully designed with wooden curved benches and walls that promote relaxation through their design.

The Jacobs Medical Center is a triangular building, with a unique curvilinear design, and is connected by footbridges to UCSD’s Thornton Hospital on the La Jolla campus. “The geometry creates a subtle continuous flowing curve of the exterior — a dynamic form that changes as one passes around the building’s perimeter,” said Hamilton. Most rooms at the hospital have floor-to-ceiling windows to maximize natural light with panoramic views of San Diego, and gardens outside the facility designed to promote healing.

There are dedicated family areas with lounges and kitchenettes on each inpatient floor, and outdoor terraces and courtyards. Every floor and patient room is decorated with the 150-piece art collection donated by philanthropist Joan Jacobs that includes paintings, photographs and sculptures by renowned artists. There is a rooftop helicopter landing pad, and the building has a low-carbon footprint that meets the requirements for LEED-Silver certification.

Some LEED-Silver features of the hospital include a drought-tolerant plantings and sprawling green space at the ground level and at the patient level via raised gardens, according to Hamilton. The overall curvilinear form of the hospital maximizes daylight and minimizes solar gain and glare. Fritted glass serves as buffer to the southern sunlight, minimizing the building’s cooling output. The building is in close proximity to bus and light-rail transit, provides designated parking for low-emitting vehicles, and includes bike storage and changing rooms to encourage alternative transportation.

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