Organization: PCA

MCAA members are innovating and creating new ways to help minimize the impact of COVID-19. Tweet/Garot Mechanical, Inc. of De Pere, Wisconsin, is just one example. In partnership with the teams at HGA, Boldt, Faith Technologies and IMEG, they provided an acute care solution in under two weeks.

An Innovative Project Approach

With the majority of the team working remotely, Tweet/Garot and their partners had to be innovative in their collaboration. The project kicked off with a virtual big room where component teams worked through design constraints and constructability challenges while considering “off-the-shelf” approaches to the project.

As a result, the project used a standard HVAC rooftop unit retrofitted to meet isolation room requirements. This one-model approach allowed component teams to start clash detection while the design continued to evolve.

Once design was complete, the manufacturing team worked with Boldt’s facility in Appleton to streamline the production process using pull-plan sessions, completing the project start to finish in less than 10 days.

Prefabricated Modular Solution Offers Flexibility, Quick Delivery

The resulting STAAT Mod^TM (Strategic, Temporary, Acuity-Adaptable Treatment) prefabricated modular solution can be deployed for use as either stand-alone hospitals or inside convention centers, arenas and temporary structures. It is one of the only temporary care units that can be deployed quickly to provide hospital-level care to patients suffering from coronavirus.

A Variety of Configurations Suit Multiple Applications

The STAAT Mod^TM solution can be configured as:

• A two-room isolation unit designed for use in an interior shelter, such as a convention center. This unit can be rapidly deployed.
• An eight-bed unit of critical care isolation rooms consisting of four two-bed modules designed to connect to a hospital or existing structure.
• A 12-bed unit of negative-pressure open-bays consisting of four three-bed open bay modules connected to a central support spine. An infinite number of additional self-sustaining tiers can be added.

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Enhanced Features Add Safety, Reduce Costs

The STAAT Mod^TM solution was created and tested with a variety of enhanced features designed to ensure safety, allow for rapid construction and reduce costs. Virtual Reality (VR) simulation exercises allowed experts including critical care nurses trained in COVID-19 protocols, a hospital environmental specialist in infection control, and lean process engineers to test the system during design so that the solution could be constructed and delivered rapidly.

Patients and healthcare workers benefit from:

• Hospital-level clinical care that ensures infection control, access to life-saving technology and isolation rooms if needed for extended periods of time.
• Safety provisions including standardized design, centrally located supplies, and segregated staff workspaces.
• The knowledge that they are providing care that meets CDC guidelines.

Contractors are able to:

• Deliver jobs quickly and with a consistent level of quality. At the same time, contractors are able to better ensure worker safety in the controlled environment of their fabrication shops.
• Deliver cost savings over conventional construction.

Tweet/Garot gained valuable takeaways from the collaborative project. Leadership and trust were maintained among all partners, allowing the design and construction teams to successfully achieve their goals and generate a feedback loop for quick decision-making. Real-time updates from the constant daily collaboration helped address constraints, and ultimately eliminated waste.

This innovative joint effort is helping to pave the way for the healthcare construction market while at the same time minimizing the impact on the community. We’re all in this together.

MCAA members are continuously building facilities to serve the surge of COVID-19 patients in their communities. New England MCA, Inc. member Harry Grodsky & Company, Inc. is just one example. The company recently completed work on a rapid response triage outside the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The triage enables medical staff to quickly screen patients to determine which ones are the sickest and need the most immediate care. In addition to the patient care benefits, the triage helps prevent the hospital staff from becoming overwhelmed by overcrowded facilities.

Designed to handle between 30 and 40 patients at a time, the triage is fully equipped, meaning staff can treat patients without entering the hospital’s main building.

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In delivering facilities like this one, MCAA members like Harry Grodsky & Company, Inc. are helping to ensure that COVID-19 patients are tested and treated quickly, keeping our communities safer for all of us. We are all in this together.  

MCAA member companies have overcome scheduling and other challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic in order to serve our communities. MCA of Cleveland member Smith & Oby Company’s work on the conversion of Cleveland Clinic’s Health Education Campus (HEC) main building into a COVID-19 surge hospital is just one example.

The temporary hospital is one part of Cleveland Clinic’s strategy to be fully prepared to meet the needs of the community during this rapidly evolving situation.

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The facility, called Hope Hospital, offers onsite care for COVID-19 patients with short term needs. These are patients who do not require ventilators or large amounts of oxygen. The entire project was accomplished in less than a month. The four-story, 477,000-square-foot building can accommodate up to 1,000 hospital beds.

Edmund S. Sabanegh, Cleveland Clinic’s President of Main Campus and Regional Hospitals, praises all of the project partners, saying, “There’s really no precedent for us doing something this big this quickly. It’s been amazing to watch clinical leaders and operations, construction, design and nursing teams all come together in a very short window of time and literally build a thousand-bed-capability facility that rivals fixed buildings in many parts of the country. “

Members like the Smith & Oby Company continue to adapt to the COVID-19 situation to help provide the best patient care in the safest way possible. We are all in this together.

Arden Engineering Constructors recently completed work on two COVID-19 field hospitals which add 935 patient beds for the anticipated COVID-19 surge in Rhode Island. The project had two 12-hour shifts running seven days a week from the time it began on April 6 until completion on April 18.

Arden provided and installed all of the HVAC piping, plumbing, ductwork, and medical gas piping for the project. Their in-house fabrication shop created finished bathroom piping systems ready for installation.

Unique Metal Works, an Arden Building Company, fabricated and installed approximately 6,000 feet of spiral exhaust ductwork with connection to plenum to provide “negative air flow” and prevent the escape of possible contamination. Their ability to do this provided both cost efficiencies and greater quality control for the project.

Earthwise Energy Technologies of Arden Building Companies, installed the monitoring and alarming for the negative pressure exhaust systems in the patient and pharmacy areas. The systems are monitored remotely using a graphic interface that allows needed adjustments to be made at any time, from anywhere.

MCAA thanks Arden Engineering Constructors for their efforts in support of healthcare providers, and for providing alternative care facilities for COVID-19 patients.

Murphy Company is playing an important role in their communities’ fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. As the number of citizens requiring hospitalization has surged, so has the need for additional isolation rooms on a quick-turn schedule. The pandemic has presented additional challenges, and Murphy Company has met them all with innovative and fast-moving solutions.

St. Joseph Hospital

In an effort to convert standard patient rooms to negative pressure rooms, Murphy’s creative team figured out a way to install temporary ductwork along the building by feeding the room through a window, with HEPA filtration located on the roof of the St. Charles, MO hospital.

The fast-paced project converted rooms in 17 hours with an average crew size of six working around the clock (7:00 am – 12:00 am).

St. Anthony North Health Campus

Murphy Company converted a floor of standard patient rooms to negative pressure rooms for this job. From inception to turnover, this was done in 7 calendar days.

Project Timeline

• April 1: Design team finalized plans and drawings with the St. Anthony North Health Campus team
• April 2: Crew started layout, sketched and moved to fabrication
• April 3: Roof curbs were installed
• April 4: A weekend crane pick was staged to install the new exhaust fans. The sheet metal shop worked around the clock to complete the ductwork fabrication needed the next day
• April 5: Ductwork arrived on site and was installed
• April 6: Started and balanced the first two fans and turned over 15 rooms for the hospital to use that night
• April 7: The last fan was started up, and the remaining 14 rooms were turned over in the afternoon

SSM Health DePaul Hospital

Murphy Company orchestrated work on three negative pressure rooms for the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at DePaul Hospital.

Kelly Pearce, Incident Commander at DePaul Hospital, praised Murphy Company for its work, saying, “I want to pass on my personal gratitude as the incident commander for DePaul Hospital as well as from the perspective of my ICU nursing background for the work your teams did for us last night.”

“From the time we said ‘go’ around 16:45 yesterday afternoon, Jim Wesling and others from Murphy and Kaiser were able to convert 16 ICU rooms on 3N from normal airflow to airborne infection isolation (AII) negative pressure standards by 04:30 this morning,” she added. “Their actions have made it safer for our staff and providers to care for patients infected with COVID-19 and to provide more peace of mind to the staff working through this very turbulent situation.”

Handwashing Stations

Murphy Company needed a way for its employees to wash their hands when the public areas of jobsites were closed due to COVID-19.

Vice President Scott McIntosh came up with the idea of creating portable sinks to bring on sites. The fabrication shop was challenged with the idea, and a prototype was created in 2 days.

The project started in Murphy Company’s Denver office, and was immediately supported by management in the St. Louis office.

The first prototype was a rectangular sink created using a stainless steel countertop and a Knaack cart. A hot water heater was installed in the cart’s cabinet. Water was supplied via a garden hose, and the stainless steel holding tank, with a capacity of +/- 20 gallons of wastewater, was drained via a garden hose. This option proved to be expensive due to the cost of the materials involved.

A second, less expensive option was developed next. The round sink, which is strapped to a dolly for portability, features a hands-free, sensor-powered water faucet and soap dispenser. This prototype has rear water-source hookups (hose into the valve) and a drain in the front to allow the water to deplete from the unit itself. The wastewater storage capacity is +/- 40 gallons.

The round sink was self-contained and required only 120VAC to power a small pump and instant heater. Water fed from a 5-gallon water jug and was disposed of in a 5-gallon bucket. The original design was adapted to replace the self-contained water and waste system. This meant removing the pump and adding a 2.5 gallon electric water heater in its place. This option allows jobsites to have a moderate amount of warm water for proper hand washing without the concern of running out of water or filling a waste container.

The Denver fabrication shop shared the drawings with the St. Louis shop, which used the materials available to them to create their iterations of the rectangular and round sinks.

Senior Vice President Robert Mathisen said, “We are now looking at a much less expensive prototype that does not include a hot water heater and is also for smaller construction sites.  We are also looking at alternative components to reduce cost. One consideration was to incorporate a ‘hands-free’ faucet and a ‘hands-free’ soap dispenser to avoid touching of surfaces where contamination could reside.”

The projects were done by Murphy Company’s union tradesmen and women from Colorado Locals 3, 9, and 208, and Missouri Locals 36 and 562. 

Murphy Company plans to deploy the sinks to jobsites that need them in Colorado, Wyoming, Missouri, and Illinois.

MCAA thanks Murphy Company for their efforts in helping to limit the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and for their contributions to the safety and health of both their employees and the general public.