When a hospital needs to be remodeled and expanded, it’s usually not feasible to suspend all medical care.
So an HGA Architects & Engineers hospital project in its hometown of Minneapolis included a way to make sure the facility never closed. HGA and its partners — construction manager Mortenson and engineering firm Jacobs — used three methods in the $1 billion project to keep Allina Health’s Abbott Northwestern Hospital open: robots, prefab walls and temporarily rerouted utilities.
Healthcare construction has a higher profile at the moment, with multiple projects underway nationwide. Indiana University Health is constructing a $4.3 billion hospital in downtown Indianapolis. Henry Ford Health is pursuing a $2.2 billion hospital expansion in Detroit. Northwell Health has launched a $2 billion renovation of New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. SSM Health is building a $600 million replacement of Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis.
For Abbott Northwestern Hospital, the largest private hospital in the Twin Cities, HGA and its partners buried logistics and utilities underground during construction. While it’s common for a project to bury utility lines, the design and construction team adopted the practice specifically to separate utility work from patients and visitors in the main hospital area, according to HGA.
Robots helped, too. The project used autonomous mobile robots called TUGs to move medications, linens, sterile supplies and other materials through a dedicated logistics network, according to HGA. The robots also kept construction work away from patients and allowed hospital staff to spend more time with patients, rather than physically carrying items around the building.
The design for the 10-story, 620,000-square-foot addition to the main hospital also made use of prefabricated walls. It was the first large-scale implementation of the temporary wall system in Minnesota, according to HGA, with the builders using temporary wall products made by Calgary-based DIRTT. The wall type allowed “care spaces to be reconfigured with minimal disruption” for patients and staff.
The wall system also will provide for flexibility if the hospital’s needs change. The “prefabricated construction system ... uses a universal interface with interchangeable parts, allowing for reconfigurations, adaptations and adjustments, and a longer life cycle,” according to a project description.
The Abbott Northwestern Hospital project added 190 patient rooms, 30 advanced operating rooms, a new main entrance lobby, a 27,000-square-foot rooftop garden and replaced outdated facilities elsewhere on the healthcare campus. The project included the renovation of about 200,000 square feet in the original hospital and created roadways to improve circulation into and out of the emergency department.
Allina named the new structure the Richard M. Schulze Surgical and Critical Care Center, as the Schulze Family Foundation donated $25 million to the project. Construction is nearing completion, with staff and medical equipment expected to be moved in gradually over the next two weeks. The estimated opening date is Aug. 29.
The nonprofit healthcare provider Allina operates 12 hospitals and 90 clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sacramento, California-based Sutter Health in March agreed to acquire Allina Health for undisclosed financial terms. The combination will create an organization with 39 hospitals in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The sale is expected to close by the end of this year, pending regulatory approval.