HCA Houston Medical Center - Project Highlight
Read below about how Gilbane kept operations ongoing
while safely renovating critical infrastructure and clinical spaces
at HCA Houston Medical Center.
Gilbane has experience in a variety of markets, including healthcare. On our recent project in the Houston Medical Center, our teams worked in 12 hospital areas over two years without any closures for construction.
Gilbane provided construction management at-risk services for a complete interior renovation of an existing hospital
in the Houston Medical Center. Renovations occurred during typical work hours while the hospital remains fully operational. The renovation encompassed a complete gut of floors 3, 4, and 9, rebuilt into ICU and med-surge bed floors.
Level 2 received a hybrid OR and a renovation of the existing eight operating rooms, with work that commenced in multiple phases while the hospital remained fully operational with ongoing surgeries. On level 1, the existing endoscopy suite was renovated into a pre-op suite. The basement level now houses the new Central Sterile Services Department, which required cutting into a new elevator to connect the basement sterile department to the second-floor ORs. The scope of work also included modifications to the MEP systems and new Air Handling Units.
Operating Room Renovations
The project team renovated six operating rooms and converted two existing rooms into robotics operating rooms. The renovations were phased and coordinated with facility staff to allow surgeries to continue in adjacent operating rooms. All work was performed behind the red line with a very strict ICRA execution plan. Replacement and installation of additional medical air, med vac, WAGD, and CO2 were required in every operating room. These upgrades required outages for each system with coordinated redundancies to avoid interruptions to the operating rooms. New overhead equipment upgrades required careful coordination with vendors and end users to make sure the functionality of the new spaces met the providers' requests. Due to these equipment upgrades and the weight differential, additional structural steel was installed.
Temporary Power Installation
Six new air-handling units were installed to support the renovated patient floors and operating rooms. Due to the increased need for electrical capacity, a new main electrical switchboard with automatic transfer switches had to be installed to support the air handling units. The installation of the main switchboard and ATSs required a 72-hour shutdown of the 10-story building’s normal power. Gilbane’s project team worked alongside the facility management team to circuit trace all normal power throughout the building due to existing electrical panels not having accurate panel schedules. In the process, panel schedules were recreated, leaving the facility with a more reliable electrical system. Through the circuit tracing, it was determined what equipment and utilities needed to be on backup power during the outage. Since this was a live hospital, three temporary 2,000 KW generators were installed to run continuously while work was performed to keep critical departments functional throughout the outage.
Patient Floor Renovations
On Levels 4 and 9 of the existing south tower, all three pods had to be completely renovated to bring 60 new patient rooms up to current industry standards. This consisted of a demo and abatement of the existing 1973 floor plans. Infrastructure upgrades were needed throughout the floors for the new design capacities for medical gas, oxygen, and air exchanges. There were new mechanical risers needed to be installed throughout the tower to support the AHUs feeding these upgraded spaces. Coordination for the new infrastructure on the operational floors below the renovations was critical in keeping the hospital business practices functional during the renovation of the new spaces.
To learn more about how Gilbane can transform your next project, contact us below.
We look forward to the opportunity to work with you.
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