Modernizing a Healthcare Campus to Reflect What’s Next
CHALLENGE
A 550-bed four-hospital health system was facing a generational challenge as it considered it’s future against the backdrop of aging infrastructure. The only health system offering advanced trauma, cardiovascular, stroke and mother-baby services for a 50-mile radius, the organization was struggling to evolve its campuses to meet the demand of a community that has changed considerably since most of the campuses were constructed. With acute care buildings as much as 70 years old, functionally obsolete environments and out-buildings stitched together without any coordinated approach to patient or provider experiences, the organization needed to figure out next steps, their long-term aspirations and how they were going to afford it all.
30+ stakeholder interviews
Baseline strategy validation
Operational analysis / time-motion studies
Clinical functionality assessment
Patient consumer demographic analysis
Patient consumer experiential analysis
Provider consumer experiential analysis
Asset inventory
Parking analysis
Facility condition assessment
Co-creation sessions to explore tomorrow’s healthcare and the consumer experience
Customized demand projections
Site of service planning
Key room forecast
Space programming
Parking projections
APPROACH
Completing a master plan during the COVID-19 pandemic presented unique challenges. Strict infection control protocols at all clinical sites required careful consideration to protect patients, visitors, staff, and the master planning team. Despite the challenges, over 30 interviews were conducted. 25 sites of service were photojournaled and toured while nearly 3.5 million strategic, operational, and experiential data points were analyzed.
After the initial evaluation was completed, several “high priority” immediate needs were identified with respect to emergency and trauma care, mother-baby services, behavioral health across the system as well as parking considerations on the main clinical campus. The master plan pivoted to dive deep into these areas while also continuing to focus on how to approach a phased modernization replace clinical environments built in the 1950’s that are still in use today.
RESULTS
After a series of facilitated discussions and options development, the client elected to commence design on a multistory clinical tower on the main campus. The new tower, connecting to the newest clinical building on the campus, will be designed to include an emergency department and trauma center capable of caring for over 100,000 patients annually. Dedicated clinical environments for behavioral health, geriatric, and low-acuity vertical patients will be planned into the new emergency department.
The clinical tower will also incorporate several overnight bedded units on the upper floors, as well as a new mother-baby platform and a level III NICU, both of which will be relocated from an existing obsolete campus that is in a difficult-to-access location and lacks full acute care services.
The clinical tower is currently in design and is scheduled to be completed in approximately 3 - 4 years.
25%
reduction in travel distances to some clinical units
80%
reduction in travel distances to visitor amenities
4
intersections between front and back of house circulations eliminated