More than the Brick and Mortar
Written by Regina Kerrigan
MMT 2010 Volume: 14 Issue: 4 (June)
Currently being constructed is the new Fort Belvoir Community Hospital (FBCH) in Fairfax County, Va. The facility is a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005 project, and according to Phil Federle, program manager, FBCH Integrated Program Office, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) Norfolk District, the construction completion date is June 20, 2011. Certain areas of the hospital, however, will be ready for equipping and outfitting as early as this summer, Federle said. He said the main hospital will turn over to the U.S. Army Health Facilities Planning Agency for equipping and outfitting starting this fall and that the hospital complex is on schedule for operations late August of next year.
“Current construction is 57 percent complete,” Federle said. The name of the new facility suggests what kind of care it will provide. “The Fort Belvoir Community Hospital is exactly that—a community hospital,” said Colonel Charles Callahan, commander, DeWitt Army Hospital. “The community has been an integral part of the hospital’s conception and design, and will play a part in helping to design the specifics of care delivery.” Callahan said that while the hospital will be an important care provider of wounded, ill and injured servicemembers, “we expect that the vast majority of the care delivered will be for active duty and retired and their family members.”
He said the hospital will remain the heart of a network of contract, free-standing clinics. More than 100,000 beneficiaries across the region will continue to benefit from special emphasis on primary care, pediatrics, obstetrics and internal medicine. New levels of specialty care will be available for the 250,000 eligible beneficiaries in the referral region. “The new specialty care will include a large cancer center, a center for women’s health and a range of surgical and medical subspecialty care that has not been available in the military health system in Northern Virginia before this hospital,” Callahan said.
The new areas of specialty care at FBCH accompany state-of-the-art technologies incorporated into the design of the facility. Terry Williams, project manager for the HDR-Dewberry architectural design joint venture, said a Cerner Smart Room, a system designed to improve care and efficiency, is being incorporated into the patient rooms to deliver more control of the local environment—including lighting, window blinds, temperature—to the patient at the bed. Williams said other cutting-edge technologies will include two mock-up patient rooms used exclusively for training. Ceiling mounted booms and surgical lights in surgical suites will be controlled by fingertip. Williams said, “Each of these surgical suites will have special lighting, cameras that can carry signals to classrooms for real-time training for surgeons and staff, HVAC controls, and patient information and monitoring on four large screens.” He said robotics will also be incorporated into the pharmacy, laboratory and surgery suites.
Other features of the new building that will make the FBCH a world-class facility, according to Williams, include enhanced indoor air quality through HEPA (high efficienty particulate absorbing) filtration and ultraviolet technology, enhanced finishes for sound absorption and infection control, integrated ceiling-mounted patient lifts within each patient room for staff support, and combination intensive care and intermediate care unit to decrease patient transfers. FAST TRACK
There is a strong emphasis on making this high-tech care available to servicemembers and beneficiaries as soon as possible. Federle pointed out that the team is “reminded every day by daily news from Afghanistan and Iraq that warriors and their families need this hospital yesterday.”
He said, “An incredible team of professionals have partnered together to deliver a world-class hospital on a fast track, using the tenets of evidence based design and reducing the 10-year concept-to-completion cycle to five years.”
“The intent was to deliver a facility in an earlier time frame,” under an integrated design bid build process (IDBB), said Vic Mudryk, a project executive for Gilbane Building Co., one of the companies in the Turner-Gilbane joint venture contracted to build FBCH. The IDBB process allows construction of the facility to begin before the design has been completed. IDBB saves time when compared to the more traditional process of designing first, putting out for a bid, then beginning building, Mudryk said.
He said that one system that has helped make this process efficient is building information modeling, or BIM. “Our folks work closely with the architect and the Army Corps of Engineers to develop the coordination drawings that we need for the major electrical, mechanical, plumbing systems.” BIM, which is a digital 3-D modeling system, helps the team make adjustments and find where things might conflict. Mudryk said the use of BIM during this process has been “very successful.”
“When it’s all said and done, this is going to end up being what the military is looking for,” Mudryk said. “It’s going to be a world-class facility. It’s going to be a state-of-the-art military medical facility that can support the provision of health care services for our troops and their families for a long time.”
BEYOND CARE
The plans for the new FBCH go beyond enhancing patient care; the facility will also have a decreased impact on the environment, thanks to the required LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification. Williams said the building will use 27.6 percent less energy than the average hospital, saving over 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and almost a half-million dollars every year on energy costs.
Water directed from the structure’s swooped roofs to two underground cisterns will save 1.6 million gallons of potable water per year, which will be used for the site’s landscaping irrigation system. Other environmentally conscious plans include ensuring storm water runoff will not increase after construction, and a commitment to recycle project waste materials. Williams said that so far, the project has recycled 3,429 tons of its waste.
Federle said that together, “the visionary leadership of the medical community ... the best of American industry—the joint venture team of designers of HDR-Dewberry, the construction joint venture team of Turner-Gilbane,” and the government project management teams have helped “make the impossible the possible.” ♦
MORE NEW MILITARY MEDICAL FACILITIES
San Antonio Military Medical Center
Part of BRAC 2005 is the revamping of Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) and Wilford Hall Medical Center into the San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC) North and South, respectively. A joint venture between Clark Construction Group, headquartered in Bethesda, Md., and Hunt Construction Group, headquartered in Indianapolis, has been contracted by USACE’s Fort Worth District for the construction of the facility. Bernie Sublette, Hunt, construction manager, said SAMMC North is still on schedule to open summer 2011. According to a USACE statement, the project is “moving into an accelerated phase of construction.” The seven-story structural frame of BAMC’s expansion was completed in February, the statement added, marked with a ceremony at the placement of the last steel girder. The USACE said that when SAMMC North is complete, the facility will have 760,000 additional square feet and 200 additional beds. The new facility will also feature a Level 1 trauma center, operating rooms, clinical and administrative space, and “an extension of BAMC’s internationally acclaimed burn center,” according to the statement.
Like FBCH, SAMMC North will be held to LEED Silver Certification standards, Sublette said.
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
Part of BRAC 2005, construction of the new Bethesda, Md., Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC)
began in summer 2008. Due to be complete sometime in 2011, according to National Naval Medical Center Public Affairs, the center will be capable of treating “the most seriously war injured.”
National Intrepid Center of Excellence
Just before the WRNMMC project began, ground was broken for the new National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) at Bethesda in June 2008. According to a statement released by National Naval Medical Center Public Affairs, the facility will be instrumental in the treatment of traumatic brain injury and psychological health issues. The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which is financing the project, stated that the 72,000-square-foot NICoE will also offer treatment planning and family education, introduction of therapeutic modalities, and referral and reintegration support for servicemembers and veterans suffering from TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder. The center will also emphasize research on these injuries. Construction of NICoE is expected to be complete this summer.
Veterans Administration New Southern Nevada Healthcare System Medical Center
Expected to open in 2012, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Las Vegas-based facility will total over a million square feet and hold 90 inpatient beds and a 120- bed nursing home and extended care unit. Also planned for the facility is space for administrative offices, geriatric and rehab clinics, mental health care, home community programs and long-term care programs. ♦