Building a quality care environment with a smooth project delivery

BayCare is an innovative hospital leadership group that’s taken a forward-thinking approach not only to healthcare, but also to how they construct their healthcare facilities. Through the development of several projects, they’ve formed a cohesive Design-Build team that’s brought efficiencies, value and smooth coordination to design and construction. Serving as their trusted flooring contractor and advisor, we’ve been a crucial partner on a number of their hospital flooring projects, including the recently completed St. Joseph Hospital-South (SJHS).

This brand new, full-service hospital was built on a previously vacant lot in Riverview, Florida and opened in February 2015. We proudly installed flooring for nearly every hospital department and helped the team overcome difficult challenges with smart project planning.

The demands of the project

The new hospital construction was a 335,000-square-foot, $200 million project that required more than $1.5 million of hospital flooring installed over the course of a year. Like any major healthcare facility, it required a demanding set of different flooring materials and solutions, ranging from carpet to sheet vinyl, resilient flooring and more. This large job required continual coordination of access to the space between all trades.

Among other challenges, the hospital called for specialty interventional medicine rooms with equipment that mounts to the ceiling. As a result, the flooring had to be nearly perfectly level, with the distance between the floor and ceiling remaining perfectly constant. In addition, BayCare had recently invested in carts and other equipment that would make it easier for hospital employees to move patients and medical supplies. But the new equipment would put extremely heavy rolling loads on the floor, with some equipment exerting loads more than five times the capacity of the specified flooring materials.

In short, it was a major project with many complexities that required careful coordination and quality flooring solutions.

Our hospital flooring solutions and results

Working as a trusted advisor on the veteran Design-Build team, we provided value engineering that made a major impact on the project, carrying over lessons learned from previous work. We partnered with the architect, contractor and owner to ensure all materials were used precisely as the owner required. Ultimately, we identified some better flooring systems to meet BayCare’s requirements for performance and budget. To solve the issue of extreme rolling loads, we used an innovative spray glue adhesive instead of a traditional trowelable adhesive, reducing the potential denting and damage to the floor by 90 percent. In addition, the solution significantly reduced delays to the schedule, eliminating three days of time that would otherwise have been spent waiting for the adhesive to set.

Throughout the project, we had dedicated project managers monitor the job site each day, coordinating with all project parties to solve problems and properly plan manpower and building access. As a result of careful planning and continuous coordination, we completed the project on time and under budget. The final facility contains an emergency department, surgery rooms, imaging capabilities, 112 beds, medical offices, specialty care areas, a café and more. The project itself was exceptional in its planning, coordination and smooth delivery, and we’ll be partnering with the same team on future projects for BayCare.