NASHVILLE, Tenn. — NEA Baptist Medical Campus in Jonesboro, Ark., opened for patient move-in on Jan. 12. The opening marked the completion of construction on the 770,000-square-foot integrated healthcare facility. 
It includes a 550,000-square-foot, 181-bed replacement hospital; 220,000-square-foot physician clinic and 33,000-square-foot standalone cancer center. The project also included administrative offices and a central energy plant.
Earl Swensson and Associates served as architect and Hoar Construction as general contractor and construction manager. Over the course of construction, which began in April 2011, more than 700 construction workers were employed on the jobsite.
At $400 million, the NEA Baptist campus is the largest investment in Arkansas healthcare in the last decade. The hospital is a six-story structure connected floor-by-floor to an adjoining professional medical office building, following the Mayo Clinic’s integrated healthcare model. This professional functionality is surrounded by upscale finishes and architecture and provides patients relaxing views of outdoor gardens and natural light from clerestories above.
BIM – Better Information Management
While the industry defines BIM as ‘Building Information Modeling’, Hoar takes a more holistic approach and redefines it as ‘Better Information Management’. The NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital project was no exception to this approach. Hoar created a model from the 2-D contract drawings and integrated the subcontractors MEP/F models to coordinate overhead systems and hangers – but this “virtual construction” is common practice. Hoar went a significant step further and integrated the use of mobile devices to enable all superintendents to access all project documentation (model information, drawings, specs, submittals, RFIs) at their fingertips anywhere, reducing installation clashes in the field. Better Information Management doesn’t just focus on model coordination, but how the information flows from the model to the field, all the way to the owner at closeout.
NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital
Structurally, the hospital is comprised of six floors of concrete framing with a structural steel mechanical penthouse. The hospital features larger patient rooms and operating suites enhanced with new technology and amenities. Specialty rooms include 13 operating rooms, two C-section rooms, two CT rooms, one MRI, four radiology rooms, nuclear medicine rooms and three cath labs. The hospital also features a 24-bed intensive care unit, 13 labor/delivery/recovery rooms, a full-service kitchen/dining area and a helipad near the emergency department. The hospital is built to seismic tolerances and powered by a 35,000-square-foot central energy plant, which houses four boilers, four chillers and an emergency generator with two underground fuel tanks.
NEA Baptist Clinic
NEA Baptist Clinic is a structural steel professional medical office building that houses medical specialists and surgeons, as well as diagnostic testing services. The clinic contains a variety of specialty rooms for outpatient services including two MRIs, two CT rooms, one radiology room, X-ray rooms and several procedure rooms. All administrative offices are also onsite, along with several training classrooms, boardrooms and physical therapy areas.
NEA Baptist Cancer Center
The cancer center is a single-story integrated treatment center capable of providing the most up-to-date treatments available. The facility houses 14 exam rooms, 20 chemotherapy infusion bays, a radiation therapy linear accelerator and a high-dose rate radiation treatment room. Radiation and chemo materials are engineered and prepared in the facility’s biomedical engineering and medicine prep areas. CT and chest X-ray equipment allow monitoring and assessment of the effects and success of the provided treatments. These areas also allow the facility to participate in clinical trials as needed to provide specialized treatments for different individuals.
