Top 10 Must-Do’s When Moving into an 800,000 sq ft Hospital

By Jaime B. Parent, Rush University Medical Center

In many ways, 2011 is a year with a workload I would like to forget.  And also, a year where I had a blast that I will always remember.

Culminating more than seven years of planning and three years of construction, Rush University Medical Center successfully moved into a 14-story state-of-the-art patient tower located in Chicago’s West Side Illinois Medical District on January 6, 2012.  “The Tower,” is the crowning achievement of a 10-year campus redevelopment project that combines new construction, renovations of select campus locations and investments in leading edge construction and technology.

It is the largest capital project in Rush’s 174-year history.

The new 830,000-square-foot facility includes 304 private adult and critical care beds on the top five floors and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation Center for Advanced Emergency Response, which provides an advanced level of readiness for large-scale health emergencies from biological or chemically exposed patients—one of the first of its kind in the US.   An interventional platform occupies three consecutive floors of the new hospital and the adjoining fifth floor of Rush’s existing Atrium Building. One floor of the platform is dedicated to interventional radiology, interventional cardiology, electrophysiology and neurointerventional services. The other two levels provide surgical services where diagnostic testing, surgical and interventional services and recovery are located within a short distance of each other, enhancing collaboration between medical specialists and adding service convenience for staff and patient families. It has 42 procedure rooms and enlarged operating suites to accommodate new technology and the latest in diagnostics and imaging.

Rush’s new tower is the only full-service green hospital in Chicago LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the nation’s preeminent program for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.  Rush achieved LEED Gold certification for energy use, lighting, water and material use, as well as incorporating a variety of other sustainable and innovative strategies. Significant construction materials were reused from recyclable products and the built in efficiencies for water handling, use of sunlight and other energy smart technologies are good not only for our environment but the bottom line as well.

To make all of this work, all technology infrastructure had to be up and running Day One!  Thirty Five IT projects were chartered for the move, all designed to run on over 4 million feet of cable, 5,000 end user devices and a wide spectrum of state of the art diagnostic and monitoring equipment.  Over 22,000 network jacks and 1,200 wireless access points support all telephonic and system network activity.  And it all worked!

So how did we do it?

Attend the PDS 2012 Technology Conference session below and you will find out just how all this happens in an entertaining and informative Top Ten format.  I’ll even share with you what went wrong and how we mitigated every risk…known and unknown.

Not necessarily in order of importance, but you’ll get that when you attend the presentation…

Top 10 Must-Do’s When Moving into an 800,000 sq ft Hospital

1. Develop a solid relationship and collaboration approach.
2. Use an information system quality management plan.
3. Watch the delta between construction and infrastructure.
4. Hire effective project managers.
5. Manage scope creep.
6. Test, test, test.
7. Keep documentation current.
8. Hit your milestones.
9. Hold people accountable.
10. Have an effective governance strategy.

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VP of IT Operations and Associate CIO, Rush University Medical Center, Jaime B. Parent, will be presenting at the PDS 2012 Technology Conference this Sept 19, 2012 at 4:00 PM.  Learn more about Parent’s session and register today by visiting www.PDS2012.com.