BMC-Brighton (formerly St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center) is the flagship hospital of a for-profit, 10-hospital system in Massachusetts, which is experiencing an increasing need for critical care and flexible acuity beds in the region. HED w...as asked to design a new 10,000 SF medical-surgical telemetry unit with flexible acuity beds to assist in meeting these growing needs.

The med-surg unit consists of 16-beds and the associated support spaces on the sixth floor of the Connell building. The patient rooms are all private with a window to the outdoors. The typical room includes a custom prefabricated modular wall system for every patient headwall.

Since the design and construction of the med-surg unit was a fast-track project, the HED design team utilized a DIRTT wall system for the headwalls to save construction time and to provide maximum flexibility for the facility. The headwall units were pre-built in the factory with all medical gas piping and electrical wiring in place. The units were then brought on-site and inserted in all 16 patient rooms within a few days.

The overall organization of the unit provides separate circulation paths for patients and staff. All clinical rooms and staff support rooms are accessible from staff-only corridors in the core. Therefore, the corridors accessing the patient rooms along the exterior wall are quieter and less busy. The design of the unit also locates five nurse stations equally spaced along the patient corridors to provide visual observation of all 16 patient rooms. Additionally, there is a line of sight between nurse stations to facilitate support and cooperation between nursing teams. The family and visitor support spaces are located on the perimeter of the unit to minimize the impact of noise and activity but are easily accessible from both the elevator vestibule and the med-surg unit.