Engineering Banner University Medical Center Tower

Integrated design for a flagship medical campus

Banner Health, which runs hospitals across the USA, is upgrading its flagship campus in Phoenix, Arizona, to provide the city’s growing population with flexible modern hospital facilities.

Location

Phoenix, USA

Client

Banner Health

Architect

HKS, Inc., DPR Construction

Project Status

Due for completion early 2020

engineering-Banner-University-Medical-Center

The campus will accommodate the latest medical technologies and treatment methods, and provide a platform for future expansion. We are working on several aspects of the project including the design of buildings systems for a new 16-storey tower that will make Banner University Medical Center the tallest hospital in Arizona, and one of the most advanced. The tower will house four ICU (Intensive Care Unit) floors, seven medical-surgical floors, a behavioral health floor, and one shell floor for future build-out. It will be constructed on top of a three-storey emergency department which is linked to two helipads and two power plants, one with emergency capability.

100% private and single-bed patient rooms

Highly-integrated design opens the way to future flexibility

The integrated project delivery model and co-location approach to designing the project has resulted in a high level of co-ordination. This has enabled Banner Health to make key decisions on the most efficient version of creating ‘universal rooms’ that can flex between ICU and medical-surgical patient accommodation according to the hospital’s needs. The structural grid and engineering systems provide flexibility for these universal rooms to become exam rooms or house functions such as outpatient care or preventative health and wellness activities.

This flexibility is important in Phoenix where the population is both growing and ageing which means that care and treatment needs are likely to change over time. It allows for new technologies and treatments to be accommodated. Surgery and administrative functions have been positioned in the new tower to enable future expansion, and also positioned in the campus plan to provide a future tower with the best adjacency for future modalities or patient care areas, the same efficient structural grid spacing, access to daylight and views to the outside. Occupancy sensors and modulating air valves in the surgery area provide heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) setbacks in the operating rooms during unoccupied times, while maintaining required pressure relationships.

Delivery ahead of schedule

Integrated design has made it possible for Phase 1 of the Emergency Department to open three months ahead of schedule. This is because options were identified to make use of existing MEP services including chilled water, hot water for heating, electrical utility service lines, oxygen lines, and sewer lines. These services are also used to feed existing areas of the campus, so the co-ordination of service relocations and tie-over was a complex undertaking which was aided by integrated project delivery and co-location. As well as prompt delivery, the advantages of the design include flexibility for future configurations to accommodate further expansion or new energy technologies.

Private Bed Strategy

Patient accommodation in the new tower will be in single-bedded rooms for privacy, and the rooms will be equipped to offer the most modern treatment methods. The new tower replaces the outdated West Tower at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center with a facility that is both flexible and future-ready.