IMAGE CREDIT: LINDSAY NICOLE
Building Adaptable Patient-Care Spaces
Using Layered Modularity to Support the Future of Healthcare
Anyone who has worked on a healthcare construction project knows about long timelines. From early design to occupancy is several months if not several years. The challenge of designing a relevant healthcare space often lies in the fact that the future is unknown. It’s not uncommon for new healthcare buildings to need updates and changes before they even open. From patient surge to programmatic change, there are no shortage of ways that healthcare spaces need to evolve.
To do that, spaces must be built to accommodate change. The DIRTT Construction System does this with a platform that uses multi-trade prefabrication and layered modularity. This not only provides precision installation, but allows for quick, clean adjustments in the space when you need it. Something that is key across the world of healthcare.
Multi-trade prefab in a healthcare environment
IMAGE CREDIT: J. Michael Worthington, Jr. www.worthingtonimages.com
A Clinical Approach
Take the world of optometry. Dr. Patrick Gooi of Cloudbreak Eye Care points at a transition to wearable and portable technology in his industry. As optometrists move from large pieces of hardware to virtual reality headsets, there is a need for infrastructure to evolve.
“The ideal thing would be once the patient checks in, they just have a seat in the waiting area. They put on the VR headset and then a lot of their diagnostic testing is done just in that one seat,” says Gooi. “We bring the testing to the patient rather than the patient making multiple stops. That would improve the patient flow a lot. So, the cool thing where DIRTT comes into play is that with the movable walls, then we can try to future proof ourselves.”
With DIRTT’s modular construction system, wall panels can be easily removed. This streamlines the process of upgrading technology or adding new electrical drops to support new equipment. Those same walls can also be quickly and cleanly reconfigured to create a more user-friendly space.
“If some of the diagnostic testing… becomes obsolete and we just need to do that in the waiting area, then we can reconfigure our layout a little bit where we get rid of those old testing rooms and just open up more open, flexible waiting areas,” he says.
The need for reconfiguration doesn’t end there, according to Gooi. From tele-ophthalmology to widespread surgical capacity issues driving pseudo-surgical procedures into the clinic, the ability to update a space is more important than ever.
“Honestly, five years ago, it would have been, you know, a pipe dream…. I think if that becomes more mainstream that will require some rethinking of the layout.”
As practices evolve, DIRTT’s layered modularity empowers updated infrastructure
IMAGE CREDIT: Lindsay Nichols Photography
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach
The power of adaptability can also scale up. From a few hundred square feet in a clinic, to several thousand square feet across multiple buildings, health systems are always faced with having to deal with change. And when they look at how to best serve their patients, static space creates roadblocks to making that change.
“One of our challenges as organization that's rapidly growing and changing is we tend to move things around,” says Keith Sale, physician vice president for ambulatory service and the University of Kansas Health System. “One of our biggest challenges was repurposing space, because what works for one specialty doesn’t always work for another. The construction time and build time would often create an impediment to quick change or quick progress and turnover.”
The University of Kansas Health System chose DIRTT to support future changes
IMAGE CREDIT: Randy Braley Photography
He points to one of the clinics in the health system where there is a need for dermatology support. Reconfiguring that space would require months of work, adding multiple weeks of downtime. This was part of the reason Sale and his team built out their Corbin Park clinic in Overland Park, Kansas. Solid Walls with veneer and graphic panels created an elevated spa-like space. Modular Electrical in the walls reduced construction times but also empowers adaptation in the future. Whether the hardware and technology in the wall needs to change or whether the floorplan needs to evolve, DIRTT can evolve with them.
As this space changes and morphs over the next one to four years, the rapidity with which we can make that change becomes a lot faster than with the standard construction approach. The hope would be rather than taking a couple months to do all that it takes a weekend to reconfigure.
Keith Sale, physician vice president for ambulatory service, The University of Kansas Health System
IMAGE CREDIT: Randy Braley Photography
You Can Take it With You
For larger health systems, the ability to adapt can be leveraged across their entire real estate portfolio. A national health provider was looking at clinic space in Minnesota. After building a temporary clinic with DIRTT to accommodate a renovation on their regional headquarters, they stockpiled the wall assemblies for use later. When the need for two smaller clinics arose, they were able to take the existing material and repurpose it in two different locations.
“I don't think we used (DIRTT) the way that you're supposed to use it,” says Chrissy Anderson, the organization’s Regional Senior Director of Operations. “I think the intention is that you modify within the space that you applied it to originally, and then we're just like, no, we're going to move in two different ends of the state, because that's what we do.”
The two clinics they wanted to create served a very different purpose from the space they originally built. The walls and casework originally supported a large metropolitan clinic in Minneapolis where a staff of 25 saw more than 400 patients a week. Ten hours a day. Seven days a week. The new clinics were designed for smaller communities where the need for exam rooms was higher and the need for procedure rooms was lower.
Leveraging adaptability across a health system's real estate portfolio
IMAGE CREDIT: Lindsay Nicole
“It was taking the 6,000 square foot clinic and creating these two smaller facilities that really sort of saw patients in a different way as far as the services that were provided,” says Anderson.
“Being able to make those changes was important. It's just easier to retrofit the DIRTT than it is to start carving up walls and traditional construction.”
“It was really like taking these components that were designed specifically for this particular space and then saying, ‘can we move them into two very different spaces with two very different shells and still make them work?’” says Anderson. “And, yeah, we really can. And we're successful with it. It looks fantastic.”
Using modular assemblies from one clinic to create two new spaces
IMAGE CREDIT: Lindsay Nicole
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