The success of the Craig Hospital expansion is the result of the deep collaboration that took place early in the design process between Architect of Record RTA Architects based in Colorado Springs, Colo., and partner firm SmithGroupJJR, with offices nationwide, as well as general contractor GE Johnson, with offices in Denver, and hospital rehabilitation staff. The team united to resolve an extremely complex problem: how to build a new facility in and around an occupied traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injuries (SCI) rehabilitation hospital with minimal disruption to patients and staff.

A critical starting point of the process was to pull in experts from all disciplines and break the enormous project into 22 phases. The planning phase took a full year, which began with a week of immersion at Craig Hospital by the design team. Using an integrated project approach with the general contractor, the team co-located at the Craig Hospital campus during concept and pre-schematic design to build the project plan, design and budget. The project team continues to meet on a routine basis at the on-site project trailers to provide a collaborative environment through to the completion of the project.

This theme of collaboration now extends throughout the entire facility. The new staff workstations are designed to encourage a team-oriented environment for therapists, doctors and nurses. Cozy bistros are located on each patient level of the hospital, offering space for families and staff to share meals with patients. Patient hallways are flared to widen at the north end to create family and patient sitting areas while accommodating expansive windows that stream natural daylight into and down the length of the hallway.

The details and finishes of the new Craig Hospital reflect the thoughtfulness and collaborative nature of the design process. The building is incredibly aesthetic with sand-colored walls that feature thematic nature-based artwork, and sound absorptive rubber flooring and acoustical ceiling tiles that create a tranquil serene atmosphere for patients. Even the lighting is designed to bathe the walls with warm, indirect light so that patients in wheelchairs don’t have the harsh experience of looking up into glaring ceiling lights.

Because the needs of TBI patients differ from those who have sustained SCIs the two groups have been placed on separate levels of the hospital. The top floor (level four) houses SCI patients and their brightly colored, active therapy gym. TBI patients are on level three, a quieter floor with a more tranquil gym. According to RTA Architects’ Paul Reu, all of the 52 beds are occupied, and the hospital maintains a waiting list.

Outside the front entrance, the architects designed a sensory garden, complete with wheelchair paths and raised plant containers positioned precisely at the height of a patient seated in a wheelchair so they are able to touch and smell the growing foliage. Water features provide an inviting node and add serene sounds to stimulate auditory development. The chapel — which is nearly complete — features a cork floor and pristine white stone accent wall with recessed shelves that can be adorned with items from any faith.

Craig’s PEAK Community Outpatient Rehabilitation Center has doubled in size with technology being the feature of this space. The floor of the therapy pool functions as an automated lift so that clients and patients in wheelchairs can be lowered into the pool, eliminating the need for a separate transfer lift.

Although the Craig Hospital footprint has expanded from 135,000 to 220,000 square feet, the patient capacity remains the same because the new facility now offers private suites with ample space for family to visit and confer with physicians and the rehabilitation team. Reu explained that the only pieces remaining to be completed are Craig’s outpatient clinic, outpatient therapy center, resident doctor’s office, and kitchen and servery renovations at the main cafeteria.

Sue Rose is the principal at Construction Writers Collaborative and owner of Sue Rose PR, based in Denver.

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The $19 million project, which was funded by community donations throughout the past 30 years, will also redevelop the south wing of the fifth floor. Randall Linton, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic Health System for northwest Wisconsin, said in the Leader Telegram that he is extremely grateful for the generosity and support of the community, and without the community’s help, the completion of the Luther Building would have been impossible.

The south wing will be the home of the Neuroscience, Pediatrics and Trauma Departments and will provide 20 additional rooms for inpatient care, according to a statement. For patients who will need a hospital stay less than 48 hours, the north wing of the facility will offer 20 rapid discovery and recovery rooms for the patients to stay in, according to the Leader Telegram. The rapid recovery rooms will allow the staff to closely monitor the patients, while also giving them a rehabilitation space. The fifth floor will feature a new rehabilitation center that will include physical, occupational and speech therapy close to the patient’s room.

In 2010, construction on the Luther Building, which gave the facility an additional 358,000 square feet and updated the old facilities, was completed, but the fifth floor has remained vacant until now. The patient rooms will include wireless Internet, showers and sound isolation as well as elements of nature used to decorate the space. The rooms will be very similar to the ones that were finished in 2010.

The building is expected to take about a year to renovate and has an estimated completion date of February 2017.
 

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After the local taxpayers approved the project in June 2006, the planning for the construction and modernization began. Construction on the tower began in May 2012 and was completed in October 2015.

The 71,000-square-foot project received upgrades to the nursing units, entry corridors and elevator lobbies as well as the conversion of four semi-private rooms to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility guidelines.Construction company C.W. Driver partnered with architecture firm Stantec Inc. — both of which have offices in San Diego — to complete the renovations on each level. The upgrade to the infrastructure of the facility built in 1974 included an upgrade to the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. This included updating the elevators and controls, the hospitals information system, and the lighting and finishes in the hospital.

During construction, the hospital needed to remain functional. Keeping the hospital operational during construction does create a large challenge for the project team, according to Rich Freeark, senior vice president of C.W. Driver’s San Diego operations. C.W. Driver worked closely with Grossmont Healthcare District to plan the phases of construction in a way that would minimize the impact of the project for the patients as well as the staff, said Freeark in a statement. The coordination of the project caused minimum impact, and the outcome was a new, modernized facility to serve the surrounding community.

One major obstacle the team had to face was the renovation’s location directly above operating rooms. To contain the disruption of the construction, including noise, vibration, dust and handling of the construction materials, C.W. Driver worked with the sub-contractors to ensure functionality. The demolition of the floors was performed during the off hours, and all of the carts were covered to avoid contamination of the materials during demolition and removal of the debris, according to a statement.

Coordination between the construction team and the Sharp Grossmont team members was very important during the East Tower Nursing Unit renovation. To help keep the interference of construction to a minimum, the construction team identified noise and vibration activities in the renovation schedule and communicated with Sharp Grossmont to coordinate stoppages and the steps the project team needed to take in order to be efficient. C.W. Driver established a protocol for any unplanned requests for the stoppages and set up the appropriate actions needed in unplanned situations.

The taxpayers who voted for the Proposition G project on the June 2006 ballot, passed the proposition by more than 77 percent, which financed the $26 million renovation. On behalf of the taxpayers, Grossmont Healthcare District, a public agency that supports various health-related community programs, is serving as the landlord of the hospital’s property.
 

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The 478-bed teaching hospital, which has been based in New Brunswick since 1907, sees 30,000 inpatients and more than 200,000 outpatients annually. The new emergency room, however, is large enough to accommodate 70,000 to 75,000 patients a year in hopes of creating shorter waiting times and giving patients a greater degree of privacy. The renovation has also nearly doubled the size of the treatment areas, and new private rooms have helped improve the patient experience.

“We wanted to create a place that enabled us to practice the highest-quality emergency medicine we all envision,” said Derek Schaible, MD, interim chair of emergency medicine. “Second, we wanted to create an emergency department where we would want to be treated if we needed care.”

In a statement, East New Brunswick-based Gillespie Group, the project’s flooring contractor, said that because of the immense amount of patients, the new floor needed to be able to hold the weight of the beds as well as provide a flat and smooth surface for the beds and equipment.

Although the hospital was undergoing a major renovation, the emergency room remained open with full services to patients. The floor installations, as well as the other renovations were completed without any interruptions to patient care. All of the contractors and team worked together to devise a plan to coordinate their work to avoid clashing with the plumbers, carpenters and electricians, according to Gillespie Group. To make this happen, the floors were installed overnight while the rest of the construction was done during normal business hours.

The renovated emergency room features ARDEX flooring which set in time for use the following morning. The cement-based, self-leveling underlayment was the solution to the project’s tight schedule. The flooring is fast-curing which allowed the installation to not interfere with normal hospital operations. The next day, the floor was strong enough to be able to support the weight of foot traffic and hospital beds.

The $17 million renovation was completed in five separate phases. The floor installment was divided into smaller sections as to not disturb patient care. The area was divided into 20 different sections of approximately 1,000 square feet each. One area of the floor was completed before work on any other space began., Having to keep the emergency room open during construction was slightly more challenging while installing the floor, according to a statement from Gillespie Group. The company had to make sure each small area was level with the others, which was made easier as ARDEX flooring features a self-leveling underlayment.

According to Saint Peter’s, renovations have created three distinct treatment areas that are dedicated to acute care, women’s health and rapid treatment. The acute care bay is designed to treat emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes. The women’s health bay will deal with pregnancy complications and OB/GYN emergencies. Patients in need of IV fluids and X-ray imaging will be taken to the rapid-care section of the department to allow for quick treatment.

Some of the hospital renovations were funded through donations. James S. Choma, chief development officer of Saint Peter’s Healthcare System, and executive director of the Saint Peter’s Foundation said in a statement, “We are very grateful to our benefactors, physicians, nurses and employees for their generous support of the emergency department capital campaign.”

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Hospital officials said the submission and review of the proposed consolidation at the Mercy Hospital campus would start in late September. The final approval decisions made by the board of trustees, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Certificate of Need program, and the campus’ parent company, Trinity Health, is expected to be made in early October.

If the approval goes as the hospital leaders hope in October, preparation for the project could begin at the end of the year. Construction would start in spring 2016. The project proposal, if approved, would bring all acute care services from Mercy, Hackley and General campuses to one building.

The Vice President of Strategic Integration and Subsidiary Operations at Mercy Health Muskegon Jeff Alexander, said the leaders had hoped to have obtained all approvals and begin construction by Summer 2015 when they unveiled the project. In September 2014, Mercy Health decided to extend its plan due to the impact of health care reform and wanting to implement lean principles, which slowed the process.

The lean philosophy they plan on implementing will allow hospital leaders to plan an efficient system to eliminate wasteful practices.

After the delay was confirmed Joan Kessler, a hospital spokeswoman said the staff had converted several rooms in the facility so they could test the new workflow when using the lean principles.

The company refined the project’s business plan and is now proposing a 238-room facility, costing $271 million. The original budget had been a $220 million remodel that would feature 250 beds, a new birth center and emergency department, and several private rooms. Kessler said the original budget was conservative. The new plan will include the ability to turn 31 rooms into semi-private rooms, increasing the bed count to 269.

The project will rework a $97 million project proposed in 2013 involving renovating the existing building. The plan is in progress, but will be completed in November. On top of submitting an application to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, they also submitted a letter of intent to create a “special care nursery” at the Hackley campus.

Officials have said the emergency center at the Hackley Campus will now be used as an urgent care center, and other wings will be used for outpatient and primary care. Hackley’s urgent care will have extended hours and will feature more on-site diagnostic services.

The General Campus will be sold and demolished or repurposed.

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McLaren Port Huron plans to renovate roughly 100,000 square feet of existing patient floors in the hospital, with a redesign of most inpatient services. An additional 200,000 square feet will also be added to the existing facility. Plans also call for a new four- or five-story patient tower, as well as a 35,000-square-foot Karmanos Cancer Institute.

Karmanos Cancer Institute is headquartered in Detroit, with an additional location in Farmington Hills, Mich. The addition of a new Karmanos Cancer Institute site in Port Huron will allow residents to stay close to home while receiving state-of-the-art cancer treatment such as the new Elekta Versa HD linear accelerator, a radiation therapy, along with infusion therapy, imaging technology and clinical trials.

The master facility plan was made possible through the May 2014 integration of the 186-bed Port Huron Hospital with Flint, Mich.-based McLaren Health Care Inc., making Port Huron McLaren’s 12th hospital in Michigan.

“This project will transform the face of health care in our community,” said Tom DeFauw, McLaren Port Huron president and CEO, in a statement. “Our plans represent the next step in providing our community with the very latest clinical services and technology while providing greater privacy and comfort for our patients and their families. These are changes that will allow the flexibility necessary to accommodate future health care trends well into the future.”

The new multistory patient tower will be built at the south end of the current McLaren Port Huron campus. It will feature 70 private rooms, a new emergency center, an expanded intensive care unit and an inpatient surgery/interventional suite with two cardiac catheterization labs, an electrophysiology lab and four new inpatient operating rooms that will adjoin the current operating rooms. Groundbreaking for the patient tower will begin in fall 2015, and occupancy is expected in spring 2017.

The hospital’s existing east tower will be redesigned to have only private rooms. Furthermore, the new Karmanos Cancer Institute will occupy the site of the current emergency center. Construction for the new cancer center will begin this summer. The facility is slated to open in the spring of 2016, with full occupancy by the end of 2017.

“There’s a significant demonstrated need for local, expanded services like cancer care so patients can receive the treatment they need close to home,” DeFauw added in a statement. “It’s estimated that about 60 percent of cancer patients in St. Clair County currently travel outside of the county to receive some of their care, while approximately 40 percent go elsewhere for radiation therapy.”

Finally, an upgraded, light-filled lobby, a renovated cafeteria and other amenities will provide an enhanced visitor experience for patients’ family and friends. All renovations are scheduled for completion by fall 2018.

“This expansion and renovation of our hospital campus, which often operates at near-capacity, is a reflection of our larger vision of how our campus should perform for the next 20 years,” DeFauw said in a statement. “This progressive approach coincides with our determination to remain a locally governed, not-for-profit organization, while preserving the community’s access to high-quality health care for generations to come.”

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The hospital will have 460,000 square feet of added space and 9,000 square feet of renovations. A new 40,000-square-foot radiation oncology center is also being built in the new expansion, along with a 200-bed replacement patient pavilion and emergency department, both of which will be LEED Silver certified.

Pre- and post-partum facilities will include room for more than 4,500 newborn deliveries, a special care nursery and 50 post-partum rooms. Additionally, 18 labor, delivery and recovery suites will be built, along with an 18-bay special care nursery and a 35-bay medical oncology and infusion center. The project will also include the addition of a decontamination facility, inpatient pharmacy and an expanded emergency department.

“The New Sibley is the third phase of our master plan development,” said Jerry Price, senior vice president of real estate and construction at Sibley Memorial Hospital, in a statement. “The new private patient rooms will be family friendly and the largest in the marketplace.”

Turner is currently working on more than 150 hospital and medical office projects throughout the U.S.

“We are thrilled to play an integral part in helping Sibley Memorial Hospital meet the evolving needs of its patients with the construction of The New Sibley,” said Ken Jones, Turner’s vice president and general manager, in a statement.

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According to the hospital’s President and CEO Mark Boucot, the projects will position Garrett County Memorial Hospital to further expand upon services and provide a higher level of health care closer to home. “This represents two milestones for Garrett County Memorial Hospital,” Boucot said in a statement. “The four-story addition and renovation project…will modernize the facility and improve the community’s access to health care.

The $23.5 million construction and renovation project includes a more than 19,000-square-foot expansion, along with improvements to one-third of the current hospital space, impacting and improving most existing patient care services. The expansion will also update and renovate a number of patient care areas such as operating and recovery rooms, the interventional radiology and vascular unit, medical and surgical units, family-centered maternity suites, the intensive care unit and individual patient rooms. This project, which is slated for completion in summer 2017, will mark the first major architectural improvement to some inpatient areas since a 1980 wing addition.

Equally important is the hospital’s newly completed Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Center. This facility will help fill an important gap in the area, providing access to a health care service that has previously not been available to the community.

As heart and lung disease remain among the leading causes of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control, “cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation programs are an invaluable way to learn how to manage chronic conditions, while also decreasing the risk of having a more severe event related to these conditions that could lead to a hospitalization,” Program Director Kendra Thayer, RN BSN added in a statement.

The cardiac rehabilitation services offered in the center are specifically designed for those living with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Cardiac Heart Failure (CHF) or those who have had a recent cardiac event such as a heart attack, bypass surgery, heart stents, heart valve replacements or transplant. Meanwhile, the specialized pulmonary rehabilitation service was developed for those experiencing COPD, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, lung transplant and other chronic lung conditions.

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