Planned to achieve LEED for Healthcare Silver certification, the hospital will feature green roofs, a healing and viewing garden, skylights, exterior canopies and screens, LED lighting and a pediatrics play area that will enhance the facility’s healing environment. Another green-oriented feature includes a chilled-water system, which is projected to reduce the amount of water needed in the hospital’s sterile processing area by roughly 90 percent, as the water it produces will be able to more efficiently cool the machines used to clean and sterilize equipment. The new medical center wing will feature a steel frame with an exterior consisting mainly of precast concrete panels and glass. The glass exterior is intended to maximize daylight harvesting, which will contribute to its green certification.

Seismic Upgrades

Due to the liquefiable soils at the site, the foundation system consisted of Auger Pressure Grouted (APG) piles that extend below concrete reinforced pile caps. The APG piles are approximately 120 feet long, with 60 feet extended into the competent soil layers. The APG piles were designed to accommodate down-drag forces caused by up to 20 inches of seismically induced settlement of the upper soil layers. The pile caps were interconnected by a two-way concrete flat slab and beam system. The retaining walls from the ground level to the first floor are approximately 18 inches thick.

Gravity Framing

The gravity framing consisted of 3-inch by 20-gauge metal deck plus 3.25-inch lightweight concrete fill floor system spanning approximately 10 feet to the structural steel wide flange beam and girders. The typically bay size is approximately 29 feet by 29 feet. The floor system used for the mechanical equipment yard on the roof of the three-story portion of the building consists of a 3-inch by 18-gauge metal deck plus 4.25-inch normal-weight concrete fill. The floor system at the first level consists of a 3-inch by 18-gauge metal deck plus 6-inch normal-weight concrete fill. Typical gravity columns are 14-inch-wide flange shapes. The ground floor consists of 10- to 12-inch reinforced concrete two-way, flat-slab-and-beam system that spans to pile caps. This system is used to mitigate the potential loss of soilbearing due to the liquefiable soil layers that are present in the upper 60 to 70 feet of soil.

Lateral-Force Resisting System

This system consists of Special Moment Resisting Frames (SMRF) in both of the principle directions of the building. The SMRF system was implemented to provide flexibility and accommodate interior and exterior architectural programming and planning. The typical steel SMRF assembly consists of 30- to 36-inch-deep columns and 33- to 36-inch-deep beams. The moment-frame connection that was used for this project was the SidePlate “Frame” connection that underwent full-scale testing and exceeded OSHPD approval standards for fully restrained moment connections.

Conclusion

VCMC is the designated Level II Trauma Center for the west county and is known for its extraordinary trauma team, which includes skilled and talented surgeons covering neurosurgery, orthopedic and general surgery cases. Additionally, the award-winning neonatal intensive care unit and pediatric unit are unique to a county this size; VCMC boasts the only pediatric hospitalist in the county as well as having the county’s first and only Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). VCMC is also the only Ventura County academic teaching hospital with a residency affiliated with UCLA School of Medicine.

The new construction will connect to existing buildings and unify them through a network of inviting indoor-outdoor rooms, plazas and gardens, making a true healthcare campus. The seismic upgrades and well-thought out design will greatly enhance this facility and the level of care provided.

HOK is the project architect. Additional project partners include KPFF Consulting Engineers, Los Angeles, structural engineer; ME Engineers, Culver City, Calif., MEP engineer; RBF Consulting, Los Angeles, civil engineer; and Treadwell & Rollo, San Francisco, geotechnical engineer.

Jack Reddehase, DBIA, CHC, LEED AP is vice president Clark Construction Group – California LP and may be reached at 415-716-7549 or jack.reddehase@clarkconstruction.com. Clark Construction Group is a leading provider of general building and civil construction services.
 

The post Ventura County Medical Center Upgrades Seismic Safety Standards: Part 2 appeared first on HCO News.

Seismic Compliance

Seismic construction requirements are a nationwide phenomena. Different regions of the U.S. have adopted building codes to deal with various levels of seismic risk. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), hospital buildings in 39 states are vulnerable to earthquake damage – not only to construction materials and techniques, but also to nonstructural building systems. In critical applications, such as health care facilities, these components must go beyond the structure surviving an earthquake. Hospitals must remain functional in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Seismic Codes Across the U.S.

The seismic provisions of building codes are based on earthquake hazard maps that show the probabilities of certain levels of earthquake shaking in particular areas. The code requirements reflect the fact that some places are more likely than others to have strong earthquakes. The entire country is not required to meet the same seismic design standards as California, the state with the greatest risk. Places that have less severe and less frequent earthquakes have less stringent design requirements. For example, seismic codes require less in Boston than in Los Angeles. Conversely, seismic code requirements in southern Illinois, near the New Madrid seismic zone, are much stricter than in Chicago, which is less likely to have a strong earthquake.

Structural Evaluation Improvements

Since 1994, important programs and statutes have been enacted to help hospitals implement seismic building projects. One of these milestones was the implementation of Hazards US (HAZUS), developed by Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) in conjunction with the Hospital Building Safety Board.

HAZUS is a state-of-the-art modeling technology that allows for more accurate evaluation of the seismic-safety level of hospital buildings. Through HAZUS, a number of hospital buildings have been reclassified to lower levels of risk, taking them from Structural Performance Category (SPC)-1 (highest risk of collapse) to SPC-2 (lower risk of collapse). As a result, more than half of the hospital buildings that previously had to be retrofit or replaced by 2013/2015 now can be rebuilt by 2030. Certain facilities were able to secure a five-year extension, and others were granted another two years after that. However, currently, the final deadline to reach SPC level 2 is Jan. 1, 2020.

Challenges

Even with deadlines in place and standards being set, several obstacles remain – including the high costs of new hospital construction and the lack of funding and financial incentives for the hospitals to complete the work. The cost of making these seismic improvements ranges from $45 billion to $110 billion, according to a 2007 study by the Rand Corporation. And financing could double the cost. Complying by 2030 with the mandate that acute-care hospitals remain operational following an earthquake could add 20 percent to construction costs.

When the U.S. experienced an economic recession, many hospitals were on the edge of bankruptcy. Credit rates skyrocketed, and with no state financing for the Seismic Safety Act available, Jan Emerson-Shea, spokesperson with the California Hospital Association, described the act as “the most expensive unfunded mandate in the history of the state of California.”

However, many facilities are making use of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) Grant Program. With $63 million in PDM funding made available last year alone, the grant is an excellent source of capital for health care facilities to make their upgrades.
After 15 years, nearly 90 percent of the state’s 470 acute care hospitals have reached SPC 2 or above. That leaves only a handful of hospitals still working to complete their upgrades before the Jan. 1, 2020 deadline.

Construction Brings Medical Center Up to State Seismic Requirements

Ventura County Medical Center (VCMC) is a fully integrated, comprehensive system of hospital, clinic and specialty services. The system provides access to high-quality, compassionate health care to residents throughout Ventura County. While VCMC provides access to health care to all county residents, special emphasis is placed on providing access to care for the underserved and those facing barriers to access. Referred to as the “safety net” population, these individuals comprise over three quarters of the care provided by VCMC.

New Construction

In 2013, construction began on what is now a parking lot behind the hospital for a $300 million, four-story, 242,000-square-foot hospital wing to replace a portion of the building completed in the 1950s. The project will bring the medical center up to state seismic requirements SB1953 with SB306 extension and is anticipated for a 2017 completion.

The project will replace a 122-bed, acute-care facility with a state-of-the-art facility and will support numerous medical services, including emergency, surgery obstetrics, ICU, NICU, PICU and imaging. It will also include six operating rooms including a hybrid OR and two interventional suites.

In addition to the medical scope of work, the team will add a new central utility plant and loading dock with potential safety self-closing gates to the VCMC campus, relocating the existing steam plant operations into the new building, partial demolition of the existing facilities, and renovation of the existing facilities that are not demolished. The hospital will remain fully functional throughout the duration of the project.

For the rest of the project details and how it has been brought up to seismic standards, read next week’s Ventura County Medical Center Upgrades Seismic Safety Standards: Part 2.

Jack Reddehase, DBIA, CHC, LEED AP is vice president Clark Construction Group – California LP and may be reached at 415-716-7549 or jack.reddehase@clarkconstruction.com. Clark Construction Group is a leading provider of general building and civil construction services.

The post Ventura County Medical Center Upgrades Seismic Safety Standards: Part 1 appeared first on HCO News.

The 1.6 million-square-foot Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System replacement medical center will replace a former veterans facility that was damaged beyond repair by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The $995 million medical center is on schedule to be complete in the spring of 2016, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) anticipates seeing patients in late 2016.

A 130,000-square-foot energy plant serves as the core of the hospital campus’ structural operations. It provides electrical power, chilled/steam/domestic/fire water, heating and cooling systems, and emergency back-up systems to eight other buildings. Contractor Clark/McCarthy Healthcare Partners, a joint venture based in New Orleans that was developed specifically for the VA medical center’s construction, delivered the energy plant for Project Legacy, the name given to the medical center’s construction efforts. Clark Construction is headquartered in Bethesda, Md., and McCarthy is headquartered in St. Louis.

“With this electric service in place, permanent systems may be brought up, getting the project one step closer to controlling the environment required to complete construction,” said Steve Maslen, project director for Clark/McCarthy Healthcare, in a statement. “With the central plant now on line, Clark/McCarthy is on track to turn over some areas of the Medical Center in 2015, which will facilitate VA’s activation.”

The new energy plant provides enough capacity for the entire campus to operate independently of the city’s infrastructure and be self-sustaining for up to five days in case of natural disaster or federal emergency. When the old medical building took on water during Hurricane Katrina, critical internal and maintenance facilities and utility infrastructure were severely damaged. The VA hopes that with a new-build, it will be able to incorporate the lessons learned during Katrina.

New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation is providing power to the plant. All systems are scheduled to be operational by the end of 2014, and once they are deemed ready, the central energy plant will support the already-occupied VA administrative building, which was the former Pan American Life building.

Construction of the central energy plant began in June 2012, and many sustainable features have been considered for its design. Water for the cooling towers will be supplied, in part, from rainwater collected and stored on site, protecting natural resources and helping reduce utility costs.

In September 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs chose Clark/McCarthy Healthcare Partners as the Integrated Design and Construct (IDC) contractor for Project Legacy. Similar to construction management in the private industry, IDC is an acquisition methodology that allows the constructor to interface with the architect of record, the Department of Veterans Affairs and end-user groups during the period from design development through 100 percent completion of each work package, according to a website devoted to the hospital replacement progress.

Project Legacy’s architect is StudioNOVA, a joint venture of NBBJ in Seattle; New Orleans-based Eskew, Dumez + Ripple; and Rozas-Ward Architects, also based in New Orleans. BR&A Consulting Engineers of Watertown, Mass., performed the mechanical and electrical engineering for the central energy plant.

The post New Orleans VA Hospital Tests Power Plant appeared first on HCO News.

The Clark/McCarthy construction team, a joint venture between McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and Clark Construction, is in the process of installing the project’s base isolators, a unique seismic safety system designed for this project. Base isolation works by dissipating earthquake-generated energy and will enable the new Stanford Hospital to withstand an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.

The project will feature 206 base isolators of two sizes that will be placed on pedestals in the building’s foundation, essentially acting as roller skates under the building during an earthquake. This allows the building to shift up to 6 feet — 3 feet each way — during a seismic event. The smaller of the base isolators weigh 2.5 tons each, and the larger ones weigh 4 tons each.

The base isolator system will help to ensure continuity of care in the event of an earthquake, which is essential given that Stanford Hospital is the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the region between San Francisco and San Jose.

The $2 billion hospital was designed by New York-based Rafael Viñoly Architects in association with Lee, Burkhart, Liu Inc., with offices in San Francisco, and will connect to the existing hospital via bridge and tunnel.

The facility will include a flexible pavilion design with oversized windows allowing for natural light and views from the 368 patient rooms, which will total 600 patient beds on site after the addition. The project also features the new Level 1 Trauma Center — three times the size of the current emergency department — with 58 treatment bays; surgical, diagnostic and treatment rooms; a central courtyard; and a green roof.

“Technologically, it will be one of the most advanced hospitals in the world with all of the smart systems in place,” said Bert Hurlbut, vice president of construction for the Stanford Hospital project.

The facility, designed for LEED Silver certification, will feature a displaced ventilation system, which pushes air high and ventilates low, giving patients a comfortable flow of air. Plus, it uses less energy to run, Hurlbut said. The window system is also hooked up to the building automation system, so instead of turning on the air conditioning, the building will slowly lower the blinds to start blocking some of the sunlight.

The Stanford Hospital is part of the SUMC Renewal Project, which also includes the expansion of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, the renovation of Hoover Pavilion, the Welch Road Utility Project and the replacement of School of Medicine facilities. Scheduled for completion in 2017, the hospital is expected to open for patient care in early 2018 while remaining operational.

The post Stanford Hospital Team Installs Base Isolators appeared first on HCO News.