Lean Hospitals Archives - HCO News

Shepley Bulfinch to Design Children’s Hospital of Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Architecture firm Shepley Bulfinch of Boston was selected to design the physician-led plan for a new Children’s Hospital of Buffalo on its Niagara campus in Western New York.

While the hospital ranks among the top hospitals by the U.S. News and World Report, its current location is landlocked by a residential neighborhood and its 120-year old infrastructure is no longer efficient, according to the firm.

The emerging growth of the medical campus and the planned relocation of the University at Buffalo Medical School led to the hospital’s site selection for a new facility less than two miles away.

“Shepley Bulfinch was selected for their expertise in designing clinically complex facilities that emphasize patient- and family-centered care and operational efficiency as well as distinctive architectural forms for many other children’s and women’s hospitals," said Teresa Quattrin, pediatrician-in-chief at the Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo.

The project also supports the state’s desire to restructure facilities to best serve identified community healthcare needs, ensuring access to women and children’s services in Western New York, according to the firm.

Currently in the early planning and programming stages, the bed count for the facility has not yet been determined. Completion on the new hospital is targeted for 2013.

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Seacrest Foundation Donates Media Center

PHILADELPHIA — The Ryan Seacrest Foundation has selected The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as the latest site for construction of The Voice, an interactive closed-circuit broadcast multimedia center.

The Voice provides young patients in hospitals with an outlet to engage in activities related to radio, television and new media, ranging from broadcasting like a disc jockey to watching live artists perform and interviewing celebrities.

The initiative aims to “contribute positively to the healing process for children and their families during their stay by developing these centers to bring an uplifting spirit to the hospital community,” according to a statement by the organization.

“Throughout my 20-year career in the entertainment business, I’ve toured many hospitals and have consistently been amazed by the courage of children and their families in light of the hardships they face,” said Ryan Seacrest, who recently launched the nonprofit organization that works to enhance the quality of life of seriously ill and injured children through programs that utilize multimedia and interactive platforms.

“Recognized as one of the best children’s hospitals in the country, I am thrilled to bring our program to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia,” Seacrest said. “Not only is The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia leading pediatric clinical and research innovation, it is a national leader in developing techniques to support the patient’s emotional well-being. The Voice will be a new addition to their existing Child-Life programs and will provide a lively form of interactive entertainment.”

Scheduled to open this summer, The Voice will be located in the Main Hospital’s Colket Atrium and will involve students from local journalism schools, colleges and universities to provide an opportunity to gain first-hand experience in broadcasting, programming and operating a multimedia center.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation’s first pediatric hospital. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country, ranking third in National Institutes of Health funding. The 516-bed hospital has been recognized as a leading advocate for children and adolescents.

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San Diego Hospital Achieves LEED

SAN DIEGO — Opened in October 2010, the new $260 million Rady Children‘s Hospital Acute Care Pavilion in San Diego has been LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Built by McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., the 279,000-square-foot facility is the first acute care hospital in the state to meet the standards of quality and safety mandated by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD), while also meeting the level of occupant health and environmental sustainability required to earn it LEED Certified status.

Stantec was the project architect; KPFF of San Francisco served as the structural engineer; RBF of San Diego was the civil engineer; Randall Lamb of San Diego was the electrical engineer, and Shadpour Consulting Engineers, also of San Diego, was the mechanical engineer. Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey of Mill Valley was the landscape architect.

“Construction oversight of LEED-certified projects adds a heightened level of complexity to already complicated healthcare construction projects in California, based on the state’s strict criteria for earthquake safety,” said Tim Jacoby, vice president of facilities for Rady Children‘s Hospital, who led the successful team collaboration. “We congratulate the project team for not just meeting but exceeding the hospital‘s expectations for sustainability, and applaud them for their roles in creating a world-class LEED Certified facility.”

The new Acute Care Pavilion was built on a 148,650-square-foot site at the southeast end of the hospital campus, adjacent to the existing Rose Pavilion. Second and third-floor bridges and a ground-floor walkway connect the existing facility to the new four-story building.

The pavilion houses a surgical center, 84 medical-surgical beds, a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and a cancer center. It features 16 operating rooms with associated support departments, a 28-bed hematology and oncology unit and a 10-bed bone marrow transplant intensive care unit.

The project team earned an “Innovation in Design” credit for the inclusion of multiple healing gardens that utilize sustainable design principles and aimed at reducing the stress felt by patients and their families.

The project team used recycled and locally obtained steel, concrete and other building materials, low VOC-emitting paints, glues, carpet and wood and water-efficient landscaping. A reflective concrete “cool roof” was installed to minimize heat entrapment and control rainwater run-off.

Nearly 80 percent of construction waste materials at the job site were recycled.

“Construction execution required a great deal of creative solution-finding, tracking and monitoring to keep the project on course toward LEED Certification,”said Steve Van Dyke, project director for McCarthy. “Where there was even the slightest doubt, we took extra measures and precautions to ensure compliance with the LEED credits, thus hitting our target of 31 points, five more than we needed to become certified.”

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$217 Million Children’s Hospital Approved in Iowa

URBANDALE, Iowa — The Board of Regents have approved a $271 million Children’s Hospital project, part of a $1.1 billion long-term facilities plan for University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

The Children’s Hospital will be 371,600 square feet in new construction and 56,250 square feet in renovated space for a total of 427,850 square feet.

The university first presented the idea of a new Children’s Hospital and a corresponding long-term building plan to the regents in 2008 and received approval. But the plans were put on hold as the recession affected hospital revenues.

Revenues have rebounded, officials said, and the long-term facilities plan has been shifted to cover 2011 to 2020. In addition to the new Children’s Hospital tower, the project will convert all patient rooms to private rooms, increase operating room space, improve parking and wayfinding and move many clinics and ambulatory care facilities off-site to create more space at the main hospital campus.

The list also includes plans for a second, $400 million new patient beds tower to be built at on the hospital campus between 2016 and 2020. The Children’s Hospital will accommodate 140 replacement and new acute and intensive care pediatric beds. Another 55 pediatric beds will continue in UI Hospital’s existing Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which will be physically linked to 28 additional NICU beds in the new Children’s Hospital.

Total pediatric inpatient admissions have grown by nearly 20 percent over the past five years, officials said.

UI leaders expect to raise $50 million privately for the project, with naming opportunities available. The tower is scheduled for completion in 2015.

The regents next week will also consider approval to proceed with planning on two other UI Hospitals projects: a $14.6 million Family Medicine Center at UI’s Hawkeye Campus and a $6 million community-based Primary Care Clinic in North Liberty.

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Iowa Regents Poised to Approve Hospital Project

URBANDALE, Iowa — The state Board of Regents will consider for design and budget approval a $271 million Children’s Hospital project, part of a $1.1 billion long-term facilities plan for University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

The Children’s Hospital will be 371,600 square feet in new construction and 56,250 square feet in renovated space for a total of 427,850 square feet.

Total pediatric inpatient admissions have grown by nearly 20 percent over the past five years, officials said.

UI leaders expect to raise $50 million privately for the project, with naming opportunities available. The tower is scheduled for completion in 2015.

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Treatment, Technology a Focus at Mission Bay

SAN FRANCISCO — The financing plans at the new 878,000-square foot University of California — San Francisco Medical Center called for obtaining $700 million in external loans and an additional $600 million from philanthropic donations — unthinkable to some in these tough economic times.

But by 2014, if things continue to go well, the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay will have parlayed a decade or more of vision and planning into a world-class medical facility with the opening of three breakthrough hospitals: Children’s, Women’s Specialty and Cancer. These advanced healing environments will elevate care in the Bay Area by being the only medical facility to integrate teaching, technology and treatment on the same campus.

With an emphasis on comfort and community, UCSF will join entire families in the healing process. By using patient-centric private rooms filled with natural light and bordered by gardens, incorporating the highest standards of energy efficiency, seismic safety, and sustainability, the Mission Bay hospitals will set new benchmarks for 21st-century health care enterprises.

The new facilities will also allow UCSF, which has outgrown its current hospital facilities, room to grow.

UCSF will further encourage the kind of collaboration-translating laboratory discoveries into next-generation therapies that it has in the past, becoming one of the top 10 medical research facilities in the United States, according to hospital officials. Physicians and scientists will have the unique opportunity to partner, creating the best possible solutions in treating cancer medicine and women’s and children’s health. Advanced patient safety protocols, reliable and efficient electronic records, and cutting-edge technologies from robotics to imaging, will further acknowledge UCSF as a model of modern healing.

“[The University of California] and UCSF medical centers are already renowned leaders in translational medicine-applying cutting edge discoveries to clinical care as well as developing innovative partnerships in biomedical, regeneration medicine and related discipline,” says Cindy Lima, executive director of the Mission Bay Hospitals Project at UCSF, who has been involved in the medical center project for the better part of six years.

“But they do not consistently have facilities of the same caliber in which to support their families and staff and to be maximally responsive to changing medical technology,” Lima said. “The construction of the new Children’s, Women’s Specialty and Cancer Hospitals at UCSF Mission Bay will benefit all UCSF programs and campuses as space is developed for expansion and development of new programs across the enterprise.”

According to Lima, the new 878,000 square-foot UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay that is under construction has been granted an opportunity to be built from the ground up based on extensive study of other facilities, and a vision to create uniquely supportive, welcoming, light-and art-filled spaces which includes 60,000 square feet of rooftop gardens.

Other features include ample space for families to stay in patient rooms, innovative and individualized media access in each patient room, noise reduction (rubber flooring, no overhead paging, sound attenuation), comfortable areas to congregate as well as to find respite, such as meditation areas, and areas dedicated and designed for patient education. There will also be extensive child-life areas such as a San Francisco Unified School District schoolroom, located within the hospital, along with music and pet therapy programs.

As of September 2010, the Campaign for UCSF Medical Center had procured commitments of an estimated $375 million, including two substantial gifts of $100 million or more — making it the only capital project in the hospital’s history to receive two nine-figure gifts.

“We’ve got tremendous momentum to support not only this exciting project but the larger vision of UCSF to advance health worldwide,” says Lima. “Thanks to the vision and generosity of Marc and Lynne Benioff, who donated $100 million to the recently named UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.” [Benioff made his fortune as the founder of SalesForce.com].

UCSF recently completed “Challenge for the Children,” an eight-week social media fundraising campaign that in only a few weeks generated $1 million. The successful campaign enlisted prominent team members from Silicon Valley’s high-tech community to spearhead the fundraiser. The campaign also received celebrity support, with Ashton Kutcher and MC Hammer both signed on to lead teams, collectively having nearly eight million Twitter followers.

Monies from the Challenge for the Children fundraiser will be allocated to the new 183-bed Children’s Hospital, which will offer urgent and emergency care, primary care, specialty and outpatient services, and an on-site helipad.

Funding Glitch

Due to the State of California’s fiscal situation, the funding plan at the Mission Bay facility no longer includes state funds. However, UCSF Medical Center plans to pursue seismic-related state funds, if available, to pay back hospital reserves.

Lima said that the university was fortunate enough to reduce project costs by 20 percent, no easy feat for such a large-scale project. The reductions were achieved through a combination of savings due to the recession, innovations and value engineering. The process was possible due to innovations in architectural technology, with the entire 878,000 square-foot project being virtually “built” via 3D Building Information Modeling.

“We were able to reduce the project cost over $200 million from the 2008 budget,” Lima said. “About half the cost was due to the recession and bidding strategies. The other $100 million was achieved through painstaking review of all the building design and elements, and hundreds of creative ideas that our team of architects, CM advisors, the general contractors and our subs collaboratively proposed and evaluated.”

Sustainable Campus

The UCSF Medical Center’s targeted goal is the coveted LEED Gold certification — a lofty goal given that hospitals are some of the most notorious energy users.

However, the new medical center is one of only six medical centers under development in California planning for LEED certification, and when certified will be one of the largest LEED-certified hospital complexes in the world, according to Lima. The LEED certification level of the hospital complex will be determined as plans become solidified and aided by philanthropic donations pledged to the fundraising campaign in support of the medical center project.

“UCSF and a project like the new Children’s, Women’s Specialty and Cancer hospitals at Mission Bay are efforts that everyone really is proud to be connected with,” says Lima. “I’ve been honored to be able to be part of making it happen.”

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$20.8 Million St. Paul Children’s Hospital Complete

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare celebrated the completion of its new, $20.8 million outpatient facility across from Regions Hospital, where they shared operations for 33 years.

Work on the 52,567 square foot facility and $2 million pedestrian bridge running over the main thoroughfare was begun in 2009 by McGough Construction and largely completed by late last year. BWBR Architects designed the facility.

The addition was needed when Gillette outgrew its leased space on the third and fourth floors of Regions, after partnering with the hospital to nearly double the size of its pediatric intensive care unit last May.

The new facility houses children’s rehabilitation and therapy services as well as Gillette’s renowned Center for Gait and Motion Analysis, which uses computerized cameras to analyze the walking motions of children with cerebral palsy, spina bifida and other illnesses.

A skyway now connects Region’s fourth floor with the new building and is designed to feel like an extension of the hospital.

Constructing the new building entailed excavating the side of a steep hill and installing a massive retaining wall to hold the soil in place.

Scores of permanent steel-cable tiebacks anchored in concrete and drilled 50 feet into the side of the hill were used to secure the wall. In addition, the building’s back retaining walls were made of concrete of at least two-foot thickness.

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Work Under Way on Detroit Children’s Hospital

DETROIT — A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Pediatric Specialty Center in Detroit.

The new $43 million center is to be the first of $850 million in investment from Nashville based Vanguard Health Systems which will improve or expand some of Detroit Medical Center’s aging facilities.

Other projects will include a $170-million Children’s Hospital Tower. The new five-story facility will be built across the street from the current Children’s Hospital and will consolidate outpatient services, offering both primary and preventive care. Its construction marks the first expansion at the DMC’s main campus in decades.

Mike Duggan, DMC President and CEO says that Vanguard’s commitment to buy DMC enabled the ground breaking to “stay on track and on schedule.”

DMC recently delayed the closing of its $1.5 billion sale to Vanguard until the end of the year. If approved, the sale will be the single largest private investment in Detroit history. It currently awaits approval by Michigan’s Attorney General.

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Work Continues on Children’s Hospital

BALTIMORE — When work is finally completed on the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center at John Hopkins Children’s Hospital in Baltimore, the result will be a blend of technological advances and a family-friendly environment aimed at putting ailing children — and their parents — at ease.

The 12-story children’s tower is part of the $994 million, 1.6 million-square foot adult critical care and cardiovascular tower expansion scheduled to open 2012. The expansion project is a ten-year vision, and one of the largest construction projects of any hospital in the country.

The 56,000 square-foot tower will have two expansive medical/surgical patient floors each, divided by elevator banks, and two units with a minimum of 20 beds at each end, having a total of 205 private inpatient rooms. Infants will be cared for on the south end of the ninth floor while toddlers will be on the north side. On the floor above, school-age children will be cared for on the south side, while adolescents will be on the north side of the tenth floor. Nurses remain close to their patients in alcoves just outside the rooms.

The new building will have its own dedicated radiology suite adjoining pediatric operating rooms on the 4th floor, minimizing floor travel for patients and optimizing access to imaging for surgeons in the operating room and intensivists in the pediatric intensive care unit.

“Our proximity will change the patient and family experience and allow us to be more responsive,” says pediatric radiologist Jane Benson. “All of our equipment will be child-centered.”

Doctors’ will maintain patient charts on flat-screen monitors in patients’ rooms in the neonatal intensive care unit and PICU, keeping them in close proximity to families. Gases and electrical, medical and communication equipment are at the ready in the PICU via ceiling-mounted booms, while all other rooms house that equipment in the headwall. All rooms are private and spacious enough to accommodate medical equipment and changing levels of care, allowing children to remain in the same room throughout the stay. Scattered conference rooms provide for parent consultations and staff, resident and fellow education. Large, public waiting areas near the elevators provide additional respite for visiting families.

Pediatric patients will have a variety of retreats, including “Sara’s Garden,” a tranquil garden funded by the Wilhide family in memory of their daughter Sara who was born with a heart condition and was treated at the Hopkins Children’s Hospital before she died at age three; and an enclosed playroom on the building’s top two levels, dubbed “The Great Escape,” where children can leave worries behind and delight in a sunlit expanse of “nature” with a simulated beach and a garden alongside an actual playground.

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Seattle Children’s Plan Moves Forward

SEATTLE — Seattle Children’s Hospital released an artists rendering showing what the campus may look like in 2013 when the first phase of a construction project that will ultimately increase bed capacity from 250 to 600, is completed.

The $175 million phase one, which Seattle-based Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects is currently planning, is scheduled to break ground in early 2011, and will add between 60-80 beds to the campus. With a twenty-year total project timeline, the proposed design incorporates neutral stones, glass and metal — all chosen to complement the current architecture and park-like surroundings. Sellen Construction, also of Seattle, will be the builder on phase one.

Phase one will add approximately 300,000 square feet of space to the hospital, including a kitchen, service dock, and improved emergency department. Some portions of the new campus will incorporate green roofs to absorb runoff, and insulate the building.

As a result of collaborative planning, patient rooms will be designed as eight-room “neighborhoods” with transparent slider doors that provide visibility for families and their care team. Features will include: sleeper sofas, privacy curtains, bathrooms with showers, and care team “porches” — alcoves outside patient rooms that provide closer access for the care team.

“Over the last few months, we have listened to hospital staff and patient families in order to design spaces that respond to their needs,” says Lisa Brandenburg, chief administrative officer at the hospital.

Hospital officials say that the need to grow is based largely on the projection that Washington’s infant to 21-year-old population is expected to grow 21 percent by 2030.

Overcrowding at the pediatric hospital is another reason for the expansion. At 250 beds, Seattle Children’s is small compared to pediatric hospitals in cities of similar size. The facility is already operating at 85- to 100-percent of capacity year-round and staff has had to turn away sick children in the past because of a lack of intensive care beds.

Planners are also working with the City of Seattle and the community to analyze options for a new helicopter-landing pad.

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