$450M Stamford Hospital transformation progresses

Kathy Silard, Stamford Hospital”™s executive vice president and chief operating officer, sat at a round table next to her desk with her hands neatly folded in front of her. After presenting Stamford Hospital”™s 640,000-square-foot expansion project and its state-of-the-art talking points at numerous health care conferences nationwide, she retains her smile, her poised demeanor and her passion for the project.

Among the biggest challenges of the $450 million construction project are, Silard said, the planning and scheduling.

“The logistics have been challenging because we”™re building a new facility on the site of an existing facility,” Silard said. “We”™re focused on thinking about what”™s going to happen in terms of construction, what”™s the impact on patients and staff and how do we get out there and tell them about it. The hardest part that is yet to come is operating it once it”™s open.”

Stamford Hospital”™s management has been carefully monitoring each step of the project since it first broke ground in May 2013. The single-phase construction builds on the hospital”™s existing campus, providing more green space and specialized services such as pediatric and inpatient care as its network of patients and physicians grows. After demolishing a number of homes on the hospital”™s perimeter, the campus will grow from 20 to 30 acres, creating a footprint for future health care services.

The construction project, which is headed by Skanska USA, a Sweden-based company with a New York City headquarters, is expected to finish in spring 2016. The new 11-story building will be completely curtained with thermal glass panels, manufactured and installed by First Massey-Ferguson Neudorf Glass Inc., based in Branford. Currently, work on the internal mechanical systems, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning and plumbing is underway and scheduled for an April 2016 completion.

The hospital will include patient care units with private rooms and bathrooms and emergency departments with separate treatment centers for cardiac, trauma, behavioral health, adult and pediatric patients. The expansion calls for larger surgical suites to accommodate the latest technology and a bigger intensive care unit space with 24 beds.

The intensive care unit will move from the Whittingham Pavillion on Shelburne Road to the new Stamford Hospital, and the vacant space will be filled by the Cohen Children”™s Institute, a nautical-themed pediatric unit that will be built with a $20 million donation provided by the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation in October.

With the new pediatric space, the hospital will begin hiring surgeons who have backgrounds in both emergency medicine and pediatric surgery.

“What we”™re doing is positioning this organization to meet the health care needs of the future in terms of primary care in the community and then inpatient specialty care,” Silard said. “We wanted to provide sophisticated, high quality and safe care to the community and position ourselves to be the preferred provider for the community.”

Stamford Hospital is known to specialize in cardiology, with its treatment of irregular heartbeats and the only open-heart surgery program in lower Fairfield County. The new building will include a heart and vascular institute.

One of the growing trends in new hospitals is the creation of private patient rooms with updated technology and systems that enable patients to feel comfortable during exams.

“When you come into the patient room we wanted to make sure the sink was right there so that the caregivers would be forced to wash their hands immediately,” Silard said. “We looked at the placement of the TV and how many steps it is to the bathroom to avoid falls and create a safe environment for the patients.”

Careful consideration was placed into the details of the fabric and flooring as Stamford Hospital”™s management team researches ways to create a peaceful setting in the patient rooms. The hospital is exploring ways to improve communication from patient rooms to nurses. A computer communication system between patients and nurses is one solution that could be incorporated in the new hospital space.

The main tower of the hospital will have 180 private rooms with private bathrooms, which is important for patients concerned about infection control, privacy and peaceful recovery, Silard said. A primary focus of the new design is providing family spaces on each floor.

Green spaces will surround the campus with outdoor walking areas and gardens.

“We will have a beautifully landscaped area outside the main hospital that”™s going to use natural rain water and a retention pond to be able to recycle a lot of that water to use for watering the area and draining it appropriately for that purpose,” Silard said.

With the national effort to make health insurance more affordable through the Affordable Care Act, Stamford Hospital is prepared to build out two more floors as administrators anticipate the number of patient visits multiplying each year, Silard said.