Healthcare Design - March 2016 - 48

O OPERATIONS | 03.16
Tackling the transition
The relocation of staff, services, and patients from the existing Parkland
Hospital in Dallas to its 2.1 million-square-foot replacement was a substantial
task with plenty of planning takeaways for moves of all sizes
By Roman Buckner and Jeffrey Powell
In 2008, leadership at Parkland Hospital in Dallas
realized that the facility built in 1954 had reached its
useful life and it was time to embrace the future. So
began a journey that lasted nine years. The new $1.3
billion, 2.1 million-square-foot New Parkland Hospital
broke ground in 2010 and opened to the public on
Aug. 20, 2015. What did it take to move staff, patients,
and equipment literally across a highway from old
location to new? An extreme amount of planning,
persistence, and patience.
The relocation of any hospital or healthcare
system typically involves similar components:
the relocation of contents (medical equipment, IT
equipment, furniture, supplies, etc.), staff offices
and workspaces, and-most notably-patients.
Though the elements of a transition may be typical
across facilities, achieving a safe and efficient move
requires a tailor-made plan based on the needs and
goals for each individual location. For any hospital
relocation involving the transfer of patients, patient
safety is the primary objective, as was the case for
Parkland.
The transition plan for the move had to account
for the relocation of the existing 1.5 million-squarefoot facility with more than 60 departments, 10,000
employees, and up to 650 patients. In addition to
housing a Level 1 trauma center, Level 3 NICU,
and regional burn center, Parkland sees more than
10,000 babies born there annually. So a plan had to
be developed with respect to maintaining these vital
services as well as the understanding that the facility
couldn't divert patients, as surrounding community
hospitals weren't able to handle the excess capacity-meaning Parkland had to remain fully functional
during the transition.
Although new equipment is often purchased for
replacement hospitals, Parkland had a significant
number of medical equipment assets with plenty of
remaining useful life. The relocation and reuse of this
equipment had to be factored into the transition plan,
as well, with as much as 50 percent of the medical
equipment ultimately relocated and reused in the new
facility.
Starting point
Given the array of considerations required, the
Parkland transition team began a planning process
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made up of five key components: a sequence
plan, facility readiness plan, training and education plan, department move plan, and patient
relocation plan. Given that patient safety was
the primary goal, the sequence plan had to be
developed first, the foundation of the overall
relocation schedule that detailed the order in
which all departments and patient units would
be moved to the new facility.

The transition plan needed to account for the
relocation of 60-plus departments, 10,000
employees, and up to 650 patients.
The output of the sequence plan provided
the following information:
* A comprehensive list of all departments that
would relocate to the new facility and their
new locations
* The optimal timing of when a department
should relocate-prior to, during, or after
patient relocations
* A determination as to whether departments
would require a comprehensive or phased
relocation prior to seeing patients in the new
hospital to best maintain services and minimize downtime of operations
* An evaluation of the impact on day-to-day
operations and patient safety throughout the
sequence
* An assessment of operating dependencies
among departments and the relocation
strategy
* The order in which departments/units and
patients would relocate.
The result of the sequence plan led the team to
separate the relocation into four stages.
Stage 1
Stage 1 began approximately three weeks in
advance of patient relocation. Primarily, this was
for departments that could operate remotely at
the new facility while maintaining operations for
the existing facility.
The early move for these departments al-

Roman Buckner

Jeffrey Powell

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Healthcare Design - March 2016

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