“We always treat our projects as if it’s our family on the opposite side of the wall. We really stress that philosophy,” said Joshua Rhodes, project manager with JE Dunn.

Phase I included updates to 33 private patient rooms, the nurses’ station and hallways and also incorporated LINC technology, which delivers access to a patient’s clinical information, offering the opportunity to update medical records, verify medication and review the patient’s last scans and test results, according to Wesley.

The sensitive nature of the project was well suited given JE Dunn’s core values. JE Dunn has a health care training program, which every person hired must complete, that hones in on the philosophy of visualizing one’s family in that particular health care facility. Everyone that steps foot on a JE Dunn job has bought into this philosophy, Rhodes said.

“Working in a women’s center is a different dynamic,” Rhodes said. “If we have some major complaints going on or if we are impacting that environment, we will shut down. That goes hand in hand with our philosophy that if it was my wife in the room, I would want to make sure she was in the best environment possible.”

The timeline on the project needed to be quick because the construction team required the take over of patient rooms in order to complete the project.

“We were on a very strict timeline to get in and get out so they could have those rooms back and use them for their intended use,” Rhodes said.

To expedite construction, the construction team experimented with prefabricated bathrooms and head walls. The construction team prefabricated 12 head walls and decided to panelize the bathrooms. Given the conditions of the construction site, the panelized bathrooms did not fit the project.

“Panelizing the bathroom’s did not work out in a renovation setting,” Rhodes said. “You have a bunch of existing conditions in a hospital that lends itself to making prefab a good option because when we do prefab and we are modeling, we assume everything is consistent and repetitive. When in a renovation like this one with an 80-year-old building, nothing is the same from room to room.”

However, the prefabricated head walls were very beneficial to the project, Rhodes said. Subcontractors are currently prefabricating 17 walls, and 34 head walls are being purchased in order to compare if buying or prefabricating head walls is the more cost-effective decision for a health care renovation project.

The second phase of construction will include renovations of the third, fourth and fifth floors, and the final phase will include an additional postpartum room and outpatient surgery rooms. The renovation is scheduled for completion in December 2014.

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“This is a totally radical way of building a health care environment,” said Kristin Moore, director of health care for DIRTT. “It’s been really exciting for us to see how quickly this has been embraced by the health care community.”

DIRTT began offering interior health care solutions after realizing the need for inherent flexibility in medical facilities. After surveying health care stakeholders, DIRTT found the need for flexibility was being expressed again and again. Technology, patient populations and health care models are constantly evolving and changing, Moore said, DIRTT wanted to create a solution that could change with health care easily and efficiently.

“[Health care] environments need to be flexible because facilities really don’t know what they’ll be delivering and who they’re going to be delivering it to,” Moore said.

The construction of the prefabricated modular walls also saves time and is cost efficient. While typical health care construction requires a linear process, DIRTT changes the process of conventional construction.

“Typically, when you look at a conventional construction project, we start with that shell. The very first thing we do is we start erecting steel studs for the drywall construction, and the challenge with that is now every trade has to work around those vertical impediments, so it’s not a very efficient process to say the least,” Moore said.

Linear construction is a long and drawn-out process that may run into several obstacles. The clean and unitized construction of DIRTT interiors is a major benefit to already occupied health care facilities that need construction to be unobtrusive and fast, Moore said.

“For health care facilities, they need to get their doors open to start generating revenue and start responding to their patient population,” she said. “If we can compress and compact that construction schedule that’s a big benefit for a health care facility.”

The horizontal detail of DIRTT solutions can also incorporate the specific needs of the health care setting. DIRTT walls can support anything from iPod docking stations to handrails to artwork. These details can be changed in or out depending on the needs of the facility and do not need to be screwed into the wall.

“We have a non-marring approach where that bracket detail supports it,” Moore said. “So over time, facilities do not have to come in and patch and repair where those elements used to be.”

DIRTT also concentrates on reducing material wastes. Using ICE software, DIRTT minimizes the amount of materials brought into construction and reuses materials in the interior to be as clean and sustainable as possible. The highly sustainable design technology also identifies which elements of DIRTT interiors can be reused in future renovations.

“Instead of creating waste and, at best, diverting waste, we just don’t create waste in the first place,” Moore said.

The post DIRTT Provides Clean, Custom Interiors for Health Care appeared first on HCO News.

“Working with drywall in health care facilities increases the risk of airborne media being ingested by patients,” said John Miller, East Campus program manager with the Detroit Medical Center.

The large amount of dust created by gypsum can get into wounds or, even worse, may be ingested by patients with compromised immune systems, Miller said. Dust may also be tracked from one end of the hospital to another. Additionally, if drywall becomes wet for any reason, it will grow mold, which introduces a whole new set of health risks.

With just five months to construct the new unit, the project team was also attracted to the simplicity of applying prefabricated walls.

“We were weighing the differences between the dry wall and the modular wall. The modular could get installed faster, it would be greener and it would be more durable,” said Maureen Reilly, project coordinator at the Detroit Medical Center. “Also, if you don’t want modular walls anymore, you can just take them down. You don’t have to demolish them and create the dust again.

The medical center chose DIRTT, a manufacturer of customized and prefabricated interiors, to provide the custom, prefabricated walls for the project. The replaceable, quicker, easier and cleaner solution was a better option due to the evolving nature of health care facilities.

“I know it’s difficult to change things in the construction world and it’s kind of a leap of faith for some craftsmen, but I think it’s the way things are going because we’re constantly changing areas to serve as one use and maybe a year later we have to use it to serve as something else,” Reilly said.
The flexible DIRTT walls exceeded the expectation of the officials at the Detroit Medical Center, Reilly said. Available in several variations and capable of replacing certain parts, the custom walls are able to fit any future needs of the space.

“There is no one right answer to all health care issues,” Miller said. “I think this product provides flexibility, it provides quickness and it provides a number of other qualities that are difficult to get in your typical health care construction project.”

The Detroit Medical Center is considering the use of DIRTT walls in future construction projects, according to Miller.

“This is something that is a solution for schedule-sensitive projects and is a solution for projects that are looking for a unique image,” he said. “DIRTT was a very flexible, creative, interesting assembly that conveyed a very nice image for the unit.”

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