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High-Profile: Connecticut
June 2016
LEVEL 1, OR
Stamford Hospital & Skanska USA Collaborate on New Patient-Centered Facility
LEVEL 2, CATH LAB
Rendering of Stamford Hospital’s new Patient-Centered Facility / courtesy of WHR Architects
Stamford, CT - The process of renovating and expanding Stamford Hospital epitomizes Stamford Health’s values of patient-centered design and collaboration with its patients, employees, design and construction partners, and the surrounding community. Stamford Health’s goal is to provide state-of-the-art healthcare in a patient-centered environment, a task its teams accomplished by “continuously reminding ourselves to walk in our patients’ shoes.” The work involved the construction of a new, 12-story building that replaced a number of existing facilities, some of
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which dated back to the early 1900s. In designing the new hospital, Stamford Health incorporated the Planetree philosophy of patient-centered care – ensuring that all elements of care and overall design were approached with the goal of treating the entire person: mind, body, and spirit. From its inception, the hospital renovation and expansion took a collaborative approach. Stamford Health made it a priority to collaborate closely with its neighboring communities in planning the new campus. The result was a more sustainable design. The final hospital would have the green building components to meet the require-
Rendering of cardiovascular operating room / courtesy of WHR Architects
ments for LEED certification. Its new central utility plant is designed for both energy generation and conservation. The executive leader for the $450M New Hospital Building at Stamford Hospital and the Master Plan for further hospital development is Stamford Health’s Stan Hunter. For his work on Stamford Hospital, Hunter was the recipient of 2015 Association of General Contractor’s of Connecticut “Owner of the Year” Award. Hunter needed a strong, collaborative relationship with an experienced general contractor to achieve the hospital’s goals. He found the perfect partner in Mark Miller, account manager and project director for Skanska USA Building. Miller has more than 25 years of construction expertise and a history of successful project completion spanning a wide range of industries, including healthcare, research, hospitality, municipal, higher education, and office construction. Miller is a licensed professional engineer and certified general contractor, as well as a LEED Accredited Professional. Together, Hunter and Miller worked with the latest technologies, including Building Information Modeling (BIM), to create a building designed to respond to the needs of its users, from patients and doctors to nurses, other hospital staff, and those responsible for maintaining the complex facility after construction is complete and welcomes its first patients. On the facilities side, Skanska used BIM modeling of the equipment and MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) systems to coordinate work on the new central utility plant. During early review of the design with facilities staff, Skanska found that relocating some variable-frequency drives (VFDs) would improve access for maintenance – and that was just one example of how the team identified ways to drive a more efficient, cost-effective maintenance process. In addition to planning the project infrastructure, BIM technology was used to ensure that medical and patient imaging equipment was precisely
Rendering of catheterization lab / courtesy of WHR Architects
coordinated to meet manufacturer’s site specific requirements and all patient care needs. The medical equipment packages for the Operatories, Cath Labs, ICU and Emergency Department procedure rooms are extremely complicated and extensive. Every equipment support, back box, conduit run, light fixture, and diffuser must be carefully planned in placement and constructed in the proper sequence to achieve success in delivering the patient care space. BIM techniques allowed the team to plan efficiently and most cost effectively, well in advance of deploying installation labor to the field. Through technology, hospital staff were given the benefits of a virtual walkthrough and were able to give input into an improved patient design. Skanska also built full-scale mockups of the patient rooms and treatment spaces to further collaborate with hospital staff on design. The result of the collaboration between the teams, under the leadership of Hunter and Miller, is a facility that is sustainable and designed with state-of-the-art equipment and spaces that work for the patient and the team caring for them. The new Stamford Hospital was designed by the Texas based firm, WHR Architects, and is scheduled to open in September 2016.
