Project Description
Beaumont Hospital Emergency Center is now one of the largest of its kind in the country, and the only Level 1 Trauma Center in Oakland County, Michigan. With 107 new exam rooms, four trauma bays, and the strategic relocation of the center’s Helipad to accommodate remote emergencies, Beaumont’s Emergency Center is enhancing Michigan’s standard of care in ways that will save lives for years to come.
As a major trauma center, Beaumont Emergency Center was always busy. However, there wasn’t enough space to accommodate the rapid influx of patients; after treatment, if patients needed to be admitted they would migrate upstairs to inpatient care. But there were a large percentage of patients that needed to be observed for a period of time, not necessarily requiring an inpatient stay. The solution came in the creation of 50 medical observation beds that enable clinical staff to monitor patients outside of the emergency center but not in a full inpatient bed. When patients present to the Emergency Center, they are now triaged and placed by diagnosis in different pods, specialties ranging from pediatrics and cardiology to behavioral health and general medical surgical emergencies. Compounding the expansion are the upgrades made to 127 rooms and 50 med/obs beds that combine technology and user-friendliness to create a truly novel medical experience. Such technology includes devices that monitor patients and directly send results to medical staff, noninvasive heart monitors allowing staff to quickly evaluate heart and trauma patients, digital imaging with the ability to provide immediate results, and an MRI machine to expedite patient imaging. The center additionally has improved its wayfinding by creating an intuitive system based on lighting and materials, empowering patients to easily find their way around the center.
Beaumont Hospital is a strong force throughout Michigan. HED’s team members are proud agents behind this force, having not only worked on numerous Beaumont spaces, but having helped to develop standards for the impactful institution. After a gainful twenty-year relationship, we are honored to have played a part in Beaumont’s evolution into an effective and wide-reaching medical establishment.
In the interest of expediency and thoroughness, HED utilized a Design Assist approach with the Beaumont Emergency Center Expansion project, meaning that multiple subcontractors were retained before the design was completed in order to quickly and comprehensively develop the design and construction documents. These Design Assist partners were of the utmost importance, as a massive rewiring and infrastructure rerouting plan needed to be enacted. Our partners enabled the strategic relocation of these systems that currently served a portion of the hospital, effectively meeting the standards for cost, schedule, and minimal disruption to the new site. This six-month process required careful pre-planning between the engineers, the Design Assist partners, and the Beaumont facility employees to ensure no complications arose when construction began.