Brighton, MA – National architecture and engineering firm, HED, announced the opening of a new medical surgical telemetry (med/surg) unit at the St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton.
The unit at St. Elizabeth’s, a Boston University Teaching Hospital, opens just in time to meet heightened demand for care in the growing community.
“The opening of this unit brings St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center’s bed count to 308 and is crucial to furthering our ability to provide the highest-quality care and experience for our patients as the tertiary care facility for Steward Health Care here in Massachusetts,” said Paul Smith, chief operating officer at St. Elizabeth’s.
The unit is located within the sixth floor of the hospital’s Connell Building, which was built in 2009, with shelled upper-floor space included in anticipation of future demand for additional patient beds on the hospital campus. While a conceptual design of this unit had been completed in prior years, the hospital didn’t begin full design in earnest until March of 2020.
Led by the design team at HED, working closely with its engineering partners from BR+A Consulting Engineers, the new med/surg unit adds 16 patient beds, including two isolation rooms, to the hospital’s existing 140 med/surg bed count.
The 10,000sf project was designed in just 30 days, and construction documents were completed in 10 weeks in order to add new, flexible, acuity-adaptable beds as quickly as possible. The suite was built in just eight months by the team at Consigli Construction for $6.3 million in construction cost.
The project’s innovative planning approach was crafted with the flow of staff and patients in mind, separating circulation paths for these groups, increasing staff efficiency, and minimizing activity and noise for patients located in the perimeter rooms. Five dispersed nursing stations provide visible observation of all 16 patient rooms around the L-shaped unit. These stations maintain a centralized orientation to reduce the isolation that can sometimes be experienced by med/surg unit staff.
HED’s design team utilized a DIRTT modular wall system for patient room headwalls throughout the suite, a design solution that provides maximum flexibility for the facility in anticipation of evolving clinical demands and healthcare technology in the years to come. Solid surface countertops and sinks were utilized in patient care and work areas as well, designed as a direct response to the heightened sanitation climate brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
—
“The custom-designed DIRTT headwall units were pre-built with all the medical gas piping and electrical wiring installed in the factory. The units were then brought on-site and inserted into all 16 patient rooms within just a few days, which saved considerable construction time,” said Jackie Royer, AIA, LEED AP, an architect with HED who helped lead the assignment.
