Stamford Health Whittingham Pavilion

Babies don’t give a hoot if their hospital is being renovated: they’re coming anyway! In other words, patient care doesn’t stop during a renovation and neither does Downes’ care — especially when construction is underway around our tiniest new neighbors and their caregivers. Modernizing Whittingham Pavilion, which houses all mother and baby services at Stamford Hospital, involved complex precautions, intense logistics and careful coordination to ensure that staff and families had the safety, privacy and spaces needed to feel as comfortable as possible during their stay.

“Downes understands the importance of and establishes comprehensive safety, logistics, and ICRA plan adherence to protect everyone on and around the project including the patients and staff.”

“Their expertise in performing difficult projects within our occupied health care facility clearly sets them apart as true leaders, problem solvers, and valued team member.”

Lisa Mose, Senior Project Manager
Stamford Health

Bigger, brighter, better

For new parents, a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is as miraculous as it is nerve-wracking. At twice the size of the one it replaced, with soothing interior finishes and thoughtful lighting, the new NICU is comforting for parents and effective for staff.

Extra precautions

Labor and Delivery, Newborn Nursery, Isolation, and C-Section rooms are all high-risk areas that require strict adherence to safety protocols such as Pre-Construction Risk Assessment (PCRA), Infection Control Risk assessment (ICRA), Interim Life Safety Measures (ILSM), hot work and system shutdown permits, and fire/smoke barrier maintenance. We worked with hospital team members to develop negative pressure systems and infection control plans to ensure patient safety and minimize risks throughout construction. 

Sometimes building safe means building twice

Building enabling space for temporarily relocating critical services, creating provisional emergency paths and other interim life-safety measures involved creating prototypes and mockups to test solutions, along with careful phasing to ensure that patients and staff remained safe without disruption to delivering care. The work involved upgrading the infant security monitoring system, some critical preventative maintenance, as well as extensive value engineering to keep the project on budget. The project was constructed while the facility was occupied, meaning limited access through hallways and heavily trafficked areas, and minimal to no laydown areas for equipment made project team coordination a top priority.

The value of collaboration

Long before construction started, we were working with hospital team leaders to understand service delivery needs, assess risks and develop logistics plans, back up strategies and construction requirements. Communication was ongoing, organized and forthright, which allowed the team to learn and implement new insights as the project progressed, and ultimately shave approximately $ 1 Million from the initial budget, and made it possible to open ahead of schedule by 12 weeks.

The maternity department includes:
• 32 patient rooms
• 2 isolation rooms
• 2 nurseries
• Nurse stations
• Staff education and work area
• Family waiting area
• Soil holding rooms
• IT and security upgrades
• Installation of new client supplied equipment & furnishings

The neonatal ICU includes:
• 15 beds across five single rooms
• One quad room and three double rooms (two of which are adjoining to accommodate triplets 2 nurseries)
• “Transition” room that allows parents to stay comfortably overnight and prepare families for smooth discharge
• Parent and family lounge

Labor and Delivery Floor includes:
• Two new tub rooms
• Isolation room
• Patient LDR Rooms within suite
• One new C-Section Room and renovation of two existing C section rooms
• Six bay recovery area
• Nurse work area
• Staff lounge, locker rooms, medicine rooms, clean room, peace room, equipment storage and other support areas.