adaptability

In our work with Group Health Cooperative, now part of Kaiser Permanente, for their flagship Bellevue, WA ambulatory care center, we explored the concept of rapid re-purposing to accommodate spikes in demand for patient services.  This facility was designed as a hospital without beds containing two floors of outpatient clinic space and two floors of intensive patient treatment.  We focused on how to maximize the use of the space constructed.

In the clinic space we were able to work with senior leadership and physician leaders to plan one exam room configuration to be utilized by all specialties.  This allowed maximum flexibility in assignment of rooms and allowed for rapid reassignment from say cardiac care to primary care. We purposely built as little into the room as possible utilizing mobile strategies.  A mobile cart was used to bring modality specific supplies into the room.

The building was planned with "hard" elements like stairs, elevators, shafts, engineering closets, etc located at the perimeter of each floor providing the maximum amount of open space. Care was taken in the structural bay size to accommodate the various functions stacked in the building.

Through our efforts we were able to construct a facility about 85% of the size originally conceived but able to accommodate 150% of the demand at building opening. This built in capacity growth allowed the organization to work through the operating ideas, build their practices within the new space and rapidly reassign clinics as demand changed.