Intermountain Well being is about two weeks away from shifting its hospital within the Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge, Colorado — together with an estimated 180 sufferers — about three and a half miles down the street to a brand new and up to date facility. Ambitiously, the well being system is planning to tug off the transfer all in at some point.
The present campus — known as Intermountain Well being Lutheran Medical Heart — was based in 1905 as a tuberculosis sanitarium, mentioned Andrea Burch, the hospital’s president.
For many years, the campus consisted of “little tuberculosis huts” till 1960, when the primary hospital wing was established, she defined. A couple of decade later, the primary inpatient towards was constructed, which continues to be the central level of the hospital at this time, Burch said.
“The structure and the entire performance of that tower is an issue,” she declared. “To start with, it’s constructed utilizing three feet-thick concrete partitions as a result of that’s the way you constructed hospitals years in the past. However WiFi really doesn’t journey by way of that thick of concrete, and so we have now technical challenges within the present house.”
The present facility additionally experiences water and plumbing malfunctions very often — Burch mentioned that “some kind of leak or water pipe burst” has been occurring nearly weekly for years. Different structural issues embrace HVAC challenges and asbestos underneath a number of the flooring, she added.
Burch mentioned that Intermountain has identified for about 10 years that this facility wants an enormous renovation. Because it’s almost unattainable to renovate the hospital’s thick concrete partitions, Intermountain selected to purchase a plot of land and begin from a clean slate.
“It gave us a possibility to begin over and construct the hospital from scratch — and actually construct a state-of-the-art hospital that’s actually outfitted to deal with and help the expertise that we have now accessible at this time and sooner or later,” Burch remarked.
Along with being higher designed for tech integrations, the brand new location — which is being renamed Lutheran Hospital — may even be extra accessible for ambulances and sufferers looking for emergency care. The brand new location is situated proper close to an interstate junction, whereas the present one is in the course of a neighborhood, Burch famous.
The brand new facility may even have a helicopter pad on prime of the constructing so sufferers can have swift entry to the elevator resulting in the trauma division, she added. On the older location, helicopters must land on the campus’ kickball discipline.
Moreover, Burch identified that the brand new hospital may have a way more cohesive ground design than the present location. The present facility consists of wings that had been added on progressively over the course of a long time, however the brand new hospital has consolidated departments. This implies departments that incessantly collaborate with each other received’t be unfold throughout a number of corners of the campus.
To plan for the one-day transfer — which is slated for August 3 — has been within the works for about two years, Burch mentioned. To tug it off, Intermountain will use 20-22 ambulances to maneuver the hospital’s sufferers, she defined.
“We’ll be shifting a affected person about each 4 to 6 minutes from the present constructing over to the brand new constructing,” Burch mentioned.
In her view, one of the crucial thrilling issues in regards to the new hospital is that it’s constructed for “the pandemic of the longer term.”
This consists of separate air filtration areas to create an remoted “hospital inside a hospital,” in addition to a number of redundancy techniques to help performance in emergency situations. The hospital may even be designed to higher help employees members within the case of an outbreak — by not inserting curtains round beds, having blinds contained inside home windows, utilizing passthrough cupboards to reduce entry into rooms, and bigger hallways that enable for ease of motion at a protected distance.
The venture is estimated to price $680 million, which is underneath its $710 million price range, Burch mentioned.
Picture credit score: Mironov Konstantin, Getty Photos
