Designed to minimize stress for its patients, provide state-of-the-art treatment, and maximize staffing efficiencies, the 60-bed Wisconsin Heart Hospital was designed and built within an ambitious, 20-month timeframe on a narrow, sloping site adjacent to a residential neighborhood.
The facility is more “Ritz-Carlton” than “General Hospital,” with its design taking a definitive slant toward a hospitality feel over a traditional healthcare standard.
Special Design Feature
Approximately 80 percent of the facility’s patients visit on an outpatient basis. Consequently, the building design allows them to access testing and treatment areas easily without navigating all the way through the facility. The outpatient-based interventional suite is located on the first level, close to the main, emergency, and chest-pain entries, as well as other diagnostic services. This strategic placement of the interventional suite provides a virtual, real-time connection to deliver fast, life-saving emergency cardiac care.
Design/Construction Challenge
A 20-month planning-to-completion schedule required the construction team to “fast-track” the project. The construction phase was initiated while design work was still being conceptualized. This accelerated schedule required the design team to prepare six separate bid packages in a 6-month period.
