Southeast Sees Robust Growth in Specialty Hospitals

Health systems are building specialty hospitals to cater to patients with specific needs.

By Debra Wood

Spurred by population growth, ever-changing technology and more specialization, health systems have embarked on a building spree of specialty hospitals throughout the Southeast.

"It's what the patient wants and expects and what the staff wants and expects," said Robert Gambrell, senior vice president at The Robins & Morton Group of Birmingham, Ala., one of the nation's largest health-care contractors.

Robins & Morton is building the $88 million Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies in Orlando and the $102 million Levine Children's Hospital at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C.

"It's all about best practices and convenience and putting service lines together," said Todd Robinson, a senior designer/principal with Earl Swensson Associates of Nashville, a top national health-care designer. "That format creates better outcomes and less patient movement and better flow."

Robinson said there has been an increase in children's and heart hospitals and most are being built on the same campus as the main hospital and sometimes as part of the same building.

Meanwhile, Robert Guinn, vice president, director of health facilities, Southeast region, for architecture firm Heery International in Atlanta, said a backlash is developing against specialty hospitals, especially those owned by physicians or investors. Some facilities complain those specialty hospitals cherry pick the best-paying patients receiving expensive care, leaving the rest to community hospitals. However, that has not stopped health systems from moving forward.

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Women's Centers

"Women make most of the health care decisions for the family," said Rick Abbott, health-care principal for the East Coast and vice president of design firm HDR of Omaha, Neb. "If a health system can cater to the women and get them to become customers, in turn the rest of the family follows."

Facilities trying to make a mark with women typically offer maternity and gynecological services. Designs and colors cater to 20- to 35-year-old women and often create a spa-like environment, said Abbott, who designed a 300,000-sq.-ft., $44 million, 149-bed women and children's center for New Hanover Health Network in Wilmington, N.C.

The 400,000-sq.-ft. Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies, a part of Orlando Regional Healthcare has embraced the spa-like concept. Wireless communication systems will decrease the need for overhead pages. Adding to the ambiance are floor-to-ceiling windows, a three-story glass atrium, Murphy beds for family members, 12-ft. ceilings in the rooms, oversized showers and granite finishes.

"We wanted to create a life-affirming, healing environment," said Cathie Brazell, administrator of obstetric services for Orlando Regional. "Patients will enter through a waterway, with water cascading into a small pond, surrounded by magnolia and cypress trees."

Physicians at Orlando Regional expect to deliver 13,000 babies this year. The volume had outgrown the existing labor and delivery facilities at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. Brazell said Orlando Regional has the third-largest number of births in the country.

The new, 273-bed facility will feature a 112-bed neonatal intensive care unit.
Glass curtain wall graces the exterior of the cast-in-place concrete structure. The project included an expansion of the emergency department at Arnold Palmer Hospital; a central energy plant to service Winnie Palmer; the new emergency room and future expansion; and road work, said Derek Gregg, senior project manager for Robins & Morton.

Children's Hospitals

Growing youth populations have led health systems to build more facilities for children.

Robins & Morton began work on the 234-bed Levine Children's Hospital in 2005 and expects to complete the concrete-frame structure in 2007. The building will connect on three sides with existing facilities on the Carolinas Medical Center campus.

Interior finishes, lighting and colors aim at making youngsters feel welcome. Children's hospitals also have been quick to embrace family-centered care, making rooms larger and creating caregiver resource centers and family support spaces.

Levine convened a family advisory committee to help with planning and gearing up of operations, said spokesperson Ray Jones.

John Baldwin, vice president of facilities planning and development for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, conducted focus groups to learn what patients' families wanted before proceeding with its $344 million expansion plan. As a result, the new facilities will include family lounges, kitchens, laundry facilities, showers and business centers.

Both of Children's Healthcare projects - at Children's at Egleston and Children's at Scottish Rite in Atlanta - broke ground in December 2004 and are scheduled for completion in 2008.

Brasfield & Gorrie of Atlanta is building the 375,900-sq.-ft., five-level addition, with four levels of underground parking at Egleston, and RJ Griffin & Co. of Atlanta the 253,400-sq.-ft., four-story bed tower and three-level underground parking deck at Scottish Rite.

The expansion includes more and larger operating rooms to accommodate more equipment and the ability to complete more complex procedures. It also will double the emergency department sizes.

Heart Centers

Increasing numbers of patients requiring heart services drive a push for new cardiac-care facilities.

"It's a growing service older people will need," HDR's Abbott said. "And it's one of the moneymakers for most hospitals."

Brasfield & Gorrie is building a $52 million, 175,000-sq.-ft. heart center at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater.

"We're taking our current patient-care floors and aligning those floors with a new building that's attached to our heart operating rooms and catheterization laboratories," said Hal Ziecheck, administrator and chief operating officer at Morton Plant. "The advantage will be bringing services together and efficiencies that will develop for patients being transported and for doctors and families."

The new facility features 21 universal rooms, enabling the patient to stay in the same room from admission to discharge. The level of care and equipment changes to match patients' conditions. The rooms will include family sleeping areas and refrigerators.

Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville, N.C., is adding a heart and vascular center. Abbott said the new center will bring radiology, vascular surgery and cardiac services under one roof, where they will share some equipment and save money on duplicate purchases.

McCarthy Building Cos. of Atlanta in a joint venture with TA Loving Co. of Goldsboro, N.C., broke ground earlier this year on the $99.5 million, six-story, 375,000-sq.-ft. East Carolina Heart Institute at Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, N.C., which will consolidate cardiac surgery and interventional services. The project is scheduled for completion in September 2008.

"It's the beginning," said Jim Lafata, senior vice president and project director for McCarthy.

"I think they have a master plan and will be rebuilding over time."

Medical University of South Carolina began building in February 2005 the first phase of its replacement campus, the $154 million, 641,000-sq.-ft. Center for Advanced Medicine. The 156-bed facility will provide cardiovascular and digestive services-both adult, procedure-based disciplines that require similar diagnostic equipment.

"We wanted to provide growth for two disciplines that are crunched for capacity," said Chris Malanuk, director of strategic planning for the medical center and director of the hospital replacement project

Construction-manager-at-risk BGKS, a joint venture of Brasfield & Gorrie; MB Kahn Construction Co. of Columbia, S.C.; and Southern Management Group, also of Columbia, started pile driving in February 2005. The four-story diagnostic and treatment center was more than half closed in at the end of April, while steel erection continued on the seven-story bed tower. The project is scheduled for completion in early 2008, but Malanuk expects, weather permitting, it could wrap up next summer.

"We're extraordinarily pleased with the innovation and drive of our construction team," he added.

Useful sources:

Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies
http://www.winniepalmerhospital.org/index-old.cfm

Levine Children's Hospital
http://www.levinechildrenshospital.org/site.cfm?pid=19&sid=67

Cape Fear Valley
http://www.capefearvalley.com/construction/index.htm