“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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