Engineering Inc. - March/April 2005 - 17

 This side of our business has been robust for the last couple of years,
and we have some fairly and accessing patient data ... large work that is
on the communications network. backlogged for A trend toward specialty
clin- next year. ics off hospital grounds those that concentrate on
orthopedics, BRAD FISHER for instance has driven some FRIEDMAN-FISHER
ASSOCIATES o f the building boom. Con- struction of such specialty clin-
ics has tripled since 1990, to 92 facilities last year, with at least
Patient safety, comfort and d e s i g n of many hospitals is 2 0 more
under development, c o n v e n i e n c e are other factors becoming
outdated. As hospitals according to a 2003 U.S. Gen- driving the building
boom. As move toward digital radiology eral Accounting Office report. more
becomes known about the and imaging, for example, there And the advent of
less invasive spread of disease, there's a move is less need for large
spaces to surgical procedures, which allow t o upgrade HVAC systems to s t
o re film. And because older patients to be in and out of the i m p r o v e
indoor air quality. hospitals added new technology hospital in a day, has
brought a Shared rooms are becoming a in a patchwork fashion, radiol- c o
r r e s p o n d i n g demand for thing of the past, as more peo- o g y
departments and the like ambulatory surgical centers and communications
that allow staff ple demand private rooms and tend to be far from
emergency other outpatient centers. to register patients at the bed- b a t
h ro o m s . High on patients' rooms, where they are needed. There is
acceleration in the side, for instance, or a digital l i s t s are
upgraded waiting They're all the way at the move from the hospital to the
environment that permits doc- ro o m s , more retail stores and other end
of the hospital, so you office, Jaeger says. Hospitals tors to access
X-rays from several restaurants, greeters at the front h a v e excessive
patient trans- f e e l the need to provide their workstations rather than
having d o o r, brighter rooms, more portation as opposed to having
patients with a more comfort- to view the actual film. Today's family
spaces and bedside termi- the technology at the emergency able, less
clinical setting. hospitals also need reliable back- nals that let
patients check e- department, Kinser says. There also is increased demand
up power and communications mail, use the phone and watch Legislation also
is a factor. In for family-care clinics, medical systems to keep things
running television. California, hospitals are facing office buildings and
stand-alone smoothly. The old hospitals with dou- more than $10 billion in
new imaging centers closer to where It wasn't too many years ago b l e
patient rooms ... people health care projects as they work people live and
work. t h a t if the data network in a d o n't like it, Kinser says. t o
meet a 2008 deadline to MRI and CT scan [services] h o s p i t a l went
down, it didn't They'll go to the hospital down m a k e seismic
improvements. are now out of the hospital and matter, Kinser says.
Clinical t h e street. To be competitive, Congress' passage of the Medi- i
n t o the community, in areas care continued as if nothing had they have to
go to single private c a r e bill in 2003 increased w h e r e typically it
was just happened. Today, if a network rooms, and when you start talk-
Medicare reimbursements, eased retail, Fisher says. This brings goes out
in a hospital, clinical ing about that kind of massive financial pressures
on hospitals a hospital's services closer to c a r e comes to a virtual
stop, renovation, it's often cheaper to and provided them more capital t h
e i r clientele and out of the because everything is so reliant go down the
street and build a f o r structural expansions and hospital environment. on
getting information, commu- new hospital. improvements. Moreover, the
structural nicating orders, viewing images Design and engineering work
this row and above by HarleyEllis for the William Beaumont Hospital in
Royal Oak, Mich. M a r c h l April 2005 ENGINEERING INC. 1 7
Engineering Inc. - March/April 2005

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