By
Christine Imbs
Although the basic idea behind a hospital—to care for the sick—is
unchanged, hospital environments are constantly evolving. Today,
they are becoming patient-focused, offering more aesthetically
pleasing surroundings, and grouping services for the convenience
of patients and staff alike. And nowhere is this trend more
evident, than at the new St. John’s Heart Hospital in Creve
Coeur.
The $140 million, 340,000-square-foot facility located on the
campus of St. John’s Mercy Medical Center is the first hospital
in the region exclusively dedicated to cardiovascular medicine.
It features 96 private patient rooms with accommodations for
family members, nine procedure laboratories, five operating
rooms, integrated emergency department facilities and on-site
physician offices. What’s more, it doesn’t feel like a hospital.
“Studies show that a person’s environment plays a major role
in the healing process. So we wanted this facility to be as
stress free of an environment as you can make a hospital,” says
Don Kalicak, St. John’s vice president of business development
and strategic planning. “And early reports are that our patients
feel this is a very welcoming and peaceful environment.”
It’s also an environment that allows for better coordination
of healthcare. Considering that each year cardiovascular diseases
top the list of the nation’s most serious health problems—one
person dies every 35 seconds from cardiovascular diseases—this
is vitally important.
“The prevalence for heart disease and the need for related services
was an important part of this project,” comments Kalicak. “What
we hope is by bringing these services together, and locating
them in this specialized cardiac environment, we will be able
to develop processes that will make it better for patients in
terms of diagnoses and treatment alternatives.”
Although bringing these services together under one roof can
be beneficial to cardiovascular patients and medical staff,
the reality is people often suffer from multiple conditions
making it necessary to access other medical expertise. John
Reese, president and CEO of Christner Inc., architects for the
Heart Hospital, says the hospital’s proximity to the medical
center dismisses any problems that a similar freestanding facility
might encounter.
“There are nine levels to the hospital and each connects to
a level of the tertiary medical center with all its resources,”
he says. “In this way, there’s the ability to support the Heart
Hospital with its centralized resources—receiving docks, pharmacies,
housekeeping, food service—and to coordinate them in a way that’s
more efficient overall. Also, there’s the ability to easily
access additional medical capabilities and receive input from
other specialists. So it has a significant advantage over a
freestanding facility.”
Reese says one of the most important considerations when planning
a medical facility is longevity. Generally speaking, a hospital
needs to last and to be useful for 50 years or more.
“Things change quickly,” he explains. “Spaces that are currently
physicians’ offices may become inpatient space in the future,
or inpatient space may become some sort of diagnostic space.
In the case of the Heart Hospital, our design was tested right
off the bat. Today, floors designed for one use are already
being used for something else.”
Building so close to the medical center was also challenging.
Mike Sharamitaro, project manager with McCarthy Building Companies
Inc., general contractor for the project, says there were times
they had to shut down work in some areas to accommodate medical
procedures.
“We were running heavy equipment right outside the MRI building,
which is susceptible to vibrations. Then there was the GI lab
and audiology department, and of course noise and vibration
doesn’t work too well for them either,” he explains. “So sometimes
we’d get shut down for a few hours and have to relocate our
guys to a different part of the building to work. And we couldn’t
work too late into the evening, because the patients needed
to sleep.”
But perhaps the most challenging part of the project came with
St. John’s helipad. McCarthy used two tower cranes on the project,
and although they never encroached on the helipad itself, communication
between the construction team and the medical center was of
utmost importance.
“We had constant radio contact, so we knew when helicopters
were coming in,” Sharamitaro says. “And St. John’s has quite
a few helicopters landing everyday. So it was challenging to
say the least.”
Despite the obstacles, the building was completed in May, just
over two years after breaking ground. Sharamitaro says generally,
a project like this would take at least three years to complete.
“Everything was turned over on the 26th month and they moved
in between May and August,” he says. “So this was definitely
fast-tracked. But we had a good group of people working on the
project. At one point I believe we were running about 330 tradesmen
on the job including our subcontractors working on the mechanical,
electrical and plumbing systems.”
Murphy Company served as the design-build mechanical contractor
for the project. Jim May, project manager, says it took creative
thinking and coordination with the other trades to keep work
on track.
To accelerate the building process, McCarthy and St. John’s
selected mechanical, electrical and plumbing subcontractors
before full design completion, and provided system criteria
and performance requirements. (A traditional approach completes
all design, and then begins construction.) To solve the owner’s
schedule needs, Murphy engineers completed design for the next
level of construction as its field crews were building the level
for which design was just completed.
“To save time and speed installation, we prefabricated the ductwork
and piping in an off-site warehouse and delivered it to the
job, ready to install,” May says.
Under normal circumstances, May says mechanical installation
begins after concrete floors have been poured. But time constraints
required getting a head start. Murphy did it by drawing system
components using three-dimensional models with CADD software.
“We were able to have everything prefabricated and ready for
installation before concrete floors were poured,” he says. “This
sequencing accelerated the installation and allowed the project
to get finished more quickly.”
May adds that because the type of medical equipment going into
the hospital was subject to change, Murphy developed several
alternative designs to anchor whatever equipment was selected.
“We actually laid out some of the CAT Scan rooms and the Cath
Lab in three different scenarios to accommodate different pieces
of equipment,” he says. “Our rough-ins gave medical center staff
a longer time period to make their decisions about the equipment
without adversely affecting the schedule.”
The St. John’s Heart Hospital is the capstone of the Medical
Center’s $500 million master plan. In addition to being the
first of its kind in the region, the facility also houses the
only Level 1 Trauma Center in West County.
For additional information on the health care community,
please visit the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association
(RCGA) website. http://www.gotostlouis.org/x438.xml
