Flaget Memorial Hospital
About the project:
Greenfield Replacement Hospital
Location: Bardstown, Kentucky
Project Size: 52-beds, 121,500 SF
Services Provided: Site Selection, Project Management, Programming and Operations Efficiency
Program Components:
- All Private Patient Rooms
- Expanded Emergency and Surgery Departments
- Ambulatory Care Services
- Enhanced Obstetrics and Gynecology Units
- Healing Gardens
- ICU
- Radiology Department
- Clinical Laboratory
- Business Office
- Public Restaurant
- Health Information Area
- Chapel
Client
Flaget Memorial Hospital is part of Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), a national non-profit health corporation based in Denver, Colorado with hospitals and health facilities in 19 states. The hospital is located in Bardstown, Kentucky, a well-known historical rural community with roots dating back to colonial times. The original hospital was built in 1951 with several additions over the next 50 years. By 2002 it was 61,298 SF with 52 semi-private beds and only two operating rooms, one procedure room, seven emergency treatment rooms, five ambulatory treatment rooms, and two labor/delivery rooms.
Need
The challenge for the system, the hospital and the development team centered around a clear and identifiable need to replace an older outdated facility, which was much too small to serve the growing community, with a new state-of-the-art larger facility on a very tight budget. It was clear from the beginning of the project that the team’s biggest obstacle was acquiring the appropriate land and building a progressive 121,500 SF facility working within a low budget.
Solutions
The logical first place to economize was the land purchase. The Hammes Company team looked at many site alternatives in various parts in and out of the city, knowing that the community wanted the hospital to remain close to the original downtown site for convenient access to the services.
The project team worked very closely together and conducted weekly progress meetings during the three-year development and construction phases. Action items were discussed and updated at each meeting and any issues were resolved quickly with a minimum of difficulty. The entire team functioned as a “cost analysis” mechanism, because every single decision, both large and small, had to be approached from the cost as it related to the benefit/value to the hospital.
CHI and Flaget Memorial’s strategic master plan was the basis of all team discussion and the ultimate guide to the design of the replacement hospital. Hammes Company's guiding principle was to create a facility that met both inpatients’ and outpatients’ obviously different needs without interrupting either patient group. A curved narrowing spine was utilized as the center of the design - to separate the outpatient and inpatient use of the diagnostic and surgical facilities. In addition, a staff-only interior staircase added to the ability of hospital personnel to serve both patient segments with minimal crossover.
CHI’s goals called for very sophisticated inpatient services that also translated into a convenient, highly desirable outpatient choice. The centralization of all diagnostic testing, state-of-the-art equipment and procedures, clear intuitive wayfinding, increased natural environment/healing gardens and comfortable, home-like family spaces all benefit local outpatients, as well as inpatients.
The clinical operations of the existing facility were reviewed and the subsequent new facility design incorporated new and improved efficiencies, adjacencies, and patient safety features.
Results
Flaget Memorial Hospital was completed on schedule (in 27 months) despite a Planning and Zoning approval delay of three months. It was designed and built for only $35 million ($1 million under budget), which also included equipment, soft costs, and the initial 32-acre site.
It has been noted that the conversion to private rooms has had a positive effect on the number of patient infections, which is down. Patient privacy is also enhanced by having mobile wireless computers on wheels, so that nursing staff can complete their patient assessments and document care in the patient’s private room. A centralized nurse station on the second floor provides increased visibility and communication among staff. Numerous nurse substations located close to patient rooms now give easy access to necessary meds, linens, IV’s and computers. Efficiency is greatly increased by significantly cutting nurse travel time.
The efficiencies of the new Flaget Memorial Hospital continue to have a profound effect on staff productivity. Improved adjacencies, lower internal travel distances, increased natural light, separation by patient type, public and staff, a unique connection to the exterior environment, improved air quality, and finishes that reduce street noise all serve to make Flaget a superior facility in which to work.
Another important issue was the disposition of the original hospital building. After much consideration, the original building was sold to the Nelson County Public Library for adaptive re-use as a much-needed, larger community library, with a portion of the old site sold to the Archdiocese of Louisville for use by the local Catholic school system.