Final Report

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The Bay Area Children’s Hospital is located in the Bay Area in California with the intent to be one of the most innovative hospitals in the country, while providing necessary care to the community. This five story hospital is an expansion adjacent to the existing children’s hospital. It will add 149 patient rooms and also include offices and family spaces.  Additionally, it includes two floors of parking underneath the facility.  Recently, the Bay Area has had an increased demand for patient beds, that an expansion was necessary to meet the growing needs of the community. Through innovative sustainability features and state of the art mechanical systems, this hospital is unique and will save many lives to come.  This report looks into altering four areas of the project in the hope to provide valuable alternative construction means and methods for future healthcare projects.  Three of these analyses focused on opportunities to improve the constructability by reducing the cost or schedule.  The final analysis researched the critical industry topic of patient safety and comfort.

 

Analysis 1 | Wind Turbine
The wind turbine currently installed along the front façade of the building, stands as a pillar for sustainability throughout the hospital.  The hospital is targeting a LEED Gold certification through the implementation of many green design choices.  By using rooftop mounted wind turbines, instead of the pole mounted turbine, this analysis found that the cost could be lowered while increasing the energy output, making this the recommended option.

 

Analysis 2 | Geofoam Backfill
With a tight schedule, the construction team utilizes geofoam backfill for the garden spaces.  This analysis looked at comparing traditional soil backfill to the foam in efforts to lower costs and reduce the garden schedule.  Although the geofoam reduced the schedule, the alternative method of soil backfill is recommended because of its overall cost reduction.

 

Analysis 3 | Prefabricated Patient Headwalls
Patient headwalls offer patients the many systems they require all in one place. The project prefabricated the multi-trade medical surgical headwalls off site, and was able to deliver and install them quickly and efficiently.  Comparing prefabrication to traditional stick build, revealed the many benefits prefabrication offers, especially when a team is experienced.  Therefore, the recommended system is prefabrication as it reduced the schedule and budget all while guaranteeing safety of the workers.

 

Analysis 4 | Patient Safety and Comfort
In a hospital project, when patient safety is the most important factor, knowing when families and staff are comfortable is vital to construction. This analysis researches 3 hospital’s methods of patient safety and comfort, concluding in an industry guide.

Please note that this project has been placed on indefinite hold by the Owner. For this reason, project name, location, and construction data have been omitted from this document.

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