Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio recently broke ground on its new critical care tower. The tower is the center of a $200-million campus transformation initiative. KLMK Group, Inc serves as the onsite project manager.
The campus transformation initiative is centered on the new critical care tower. The 368,735-square-foot, seven-story tower will house a new neonatal intensive care unit, emergency department, ambulatory surgery center and space for additional clinical programs. The new facility is designed to aid in a more efficient process leading to better patient outcomes. The flexible space will allow the hospital to continuously grow and transform for patient needs. The transformation also includes the expansion and renovation of the Ronald McDonald House on the Akron campus.
Akron Children’s has been committed to including the community since initiation of the project. In order to truly understand their patients, parents were brought in during the design phase of the project. Questions and concerns that families had for their children in the new facility were addressed and obstacles were overcome before ground was broken. In addition, doctors, nurses and staff joined patient families in design workshops.
The workshops were held inside a donated warehouse space where life-sized facility models were constructed. Cardboard walls provided a mock space of the new facility enabling visitors to physically walk through and actually test the space prior to construction. This process, known as Integrated Lean Project Delivery and developed by Boldt Construction, should eliminate costly change orders during construction.
The new tower will be connected to the existing hospital and is expected to open in 2015.
