Constructing care

Expansion enables Baton Rouge hospital to add services

By June Mathews

For more than 100 years, Baton Rouge General Medical Center has been bringing innovative concepts in healthcare to Louisiana's capital.

The hospital has celebrated many milestones throughout its history, including the first open-heart surgery in the city, the first and only regional burn center in southern Louisiana and the first chemical dependency unit in the state.

In May, the hospital will be celebrating yet another milestone with the completion of the first major phase of a project that is doubling the size of the hospital's Bluebonnet Boulevard location. The $48 million expansion will not only give hospital departments and programs more space but will increase the facility's ability to serve its patients.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provided funding for the Baton Rouge General project.

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Jason Bethany of Washer Hill & Lipscomb Architecture (WHL) of Baton Rouge says the project involves a new construction phase and a renovation phase.

"Phase one will be wrapping up the end of May," he says. "At that point, we'll go into the existing building and start remodeling. Coordinating how and where to start operations on that part of the project has already begun."

The central components of the new construction phase are a four-story tower that will add 98 beds to the current 105 beds and a two-story emergency and surgical tower. These additions will provide for expanded services in cardiology, surgery, intensive care, diagnostic imaging, obstetrics and neonatal care.

The new emergency department will double its capacity to 24 beds, and a new cancer center will allow the addition of radiation oncology services to the hospital's existing surgical and medical cancer services. Kitchen, pharmacy and laboratory facilities will also be expanded.

To service the additional space, a new mechanical building with all new chillers and boilers was added. The new equipment ties in with the equipment in the existing hospital facility.

Bethany says the biggest difficulty of the project has been keeping the hospital's systems up and running during construction-related outages and switchovers.

Ann Ellis, project manager for primary contractor Milton J. Womack of Baton Rouge, agrees.

"We've tried not to disrupt the hospital any more than we can help," she says. "We limit shutdowns to weekends and evenings as much as possible."

The process has also involved a fair amount of awareness on the part of hospital employees and anyone else venturing onto the campus. Directional signage has changed periodically and pedestrian as well as vehicular traffic have been affected on occasion.

"We've had to re-route the ambulance entrance maybe six times," Ellis says.

The main two phases of the project were broken down into nine smaller phases, beginning with creating some new parking lots.

"We had to do that first so we could demolish the old parking lots and build there," she says. "The old parking area is where the new wing comes off the existing building."

Also early in the process, a new helipad was built and the old one was torn out. The new pad was in place in time to be used for transporting patients from storm-ravaged New Orleans hospitals after Hurricane Katrina.

The Baton Rouge General project has largely run on schedule since work began in December 2004, but things have not always gone perfectly according to plan.

"The architect created the phase plan before the project began," Ellis says. "It looks easy on paper, but you run into things you can't perceive."

Not surprisingly, the hurricane caused some delays, but none lasted more than a week-and-a-half to two weeks long. And the delays were not due to the storms themselves but to the effects the storms had on some of the New Orleans subcontractors working on the hospital project.

"We were very fortunate that it didn't delay us too long, but we did see some cost increases afterwards," Ellis says.

WHL planner Dottie Rosales says the design of the building was largely determined by the existing facility.

"Because it's an addition and renovation to an existing building, the design is based on the original," she says. "There are precast concrete and brick on the original building, so we tried to match that."

The hospital addition is based on an all-concrete, pile-driven foundation. The precast and brick exterior covers a structural steel core.

The new buildings total about 183,600 sq ft. An additional 43,000 sq ft will be renovated. Ellis says that part of the project will take another six to seven months beyond the new construction completion date next spring.

Up to several hundred workers have been onsite at a given time, depending on the phase underway and the work being done, Ellis says.