The coronavirus pandemic made its way to Philadelphia in March and bed occupancy at HUP West started to increase due to the influx of COVID 19 patients. Based on the experiences of other cities that had been hard hit by the pandemic, Penn Medicine leadership grew concerned that the hospital might not have enough beds. When construction on the Pavilion (HUP East) was allowed to continue despite statewide shutdowns of many other building projects, an idea surfaced: could space in the facility be made patient-ready before a surge hit?
By mid April, they had their answer: Yes! In total, there were 60 patient rooms on the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors of HUP East — as well as 60 rooms the building’s ground floor and mezzanine —set up for patient care.
Thankfully, as April rolled into May, the rooms at HUP West proved more than sufficient to meet the need for COVID-19 care and no patients needed to move to the Pavilion. Still, the effort demonstrated what motivation and teamwork can accomplish, an effort UPHS CEO Kevin Maloney described as “Herculean!”
Although the official opening was more than a year away, multidisciplinary teams had already started transition and activation planning for the move to HUP East and were familiar with the building. Now, they all stepped up to the plate in this effort to open ahead of schedule. For example, the clinical teams moving over from the oncology floors in Rhoads and staff that would be supporting care delivery received a full building and equipment orientation as well as life safety training and participated in simulated work flows, even mock codes — everything to ensure patient and staff preparedness. Working around the clock, EVS crews cleaned all the chosen areas multiple times to make sure there was no construction dirt or dust anywhere. Materials Management stocked all the areas with patient care supplies.
But before any of this could move forward, construction had to be completed and all the necessary patient care supplies and technology had to be in place. Here’s how it happened.
Getting the Right Stuff at the Right Time
Three shifts of construction crews worked around the clock to complete the patient rooms, which included finishing floors and ceilings, painting walls, fitting pipes and wiring rooms.
As construction continued, Peter E. Giovinco, MBA, the Pavilion’s Project Controls manager and his team were tackling the mammoth task of obtaining all the necessary equipment for patient care in a very short period of time. “We were reaching out to every vendor and every contact we had, he said. “It was an intense three-week effort.”
Giovinco worked with Kathy Gallagher, MS, BSN, clinical liaison of the Pavilion Project, to go through all the spaces in the Pavilion virtually. “We had to figure out what the care operations were going to look like and think outside the box in serving that need,” he said.
Beds were the most urgent need. Not knowing if they’d get enough beds in time, they searched for stretchers as well, a flexible option that could be rolled anywhere. “We relied on vendor partners who know what kind of beds and stretchers could be available in short time line,” Giovinco said.
All patient rooms were designed to have central medical air, oxygen and suction in headwalls, but, at the time, these systems were in varying states of installation. “We thought about portable suction units and oxygen tanks and how they’d work.” Giovinco said. But none of this was necessary. The headwall installations were completed on time.
As the targeted opening-ready day approached, everything had fallen into place. Thanks to bathroom pods, which were constructed offsite and had already been brought to the Pavilion for installation, all of the patient rooms had working bathrooms and sinks. But, even the ground floor — which is really an ED and not a typical patient floor — had bathrooms and showers in the hallway. “Construction gave us a lot more than we expected,” Gallagher said.
Information Services Efforts
Construction workers made sure all network wires were in place.
Technology plays a huge role in today’s health care needs: electronic medical records, computers, and patient monitoring to name just a few. As a result, when the idea to open part of the Pavilion arose, IS was on the forefront of making sure the units were patient ready. And they did it in two weeks.
Initially, said Dave Stever, director of Data Network, the focus was on “rudimentary solutions, for example, giving patients bells to call for a nurse, using portable patient monitoring with no central alarms, and paper charting.”
But then “more and more people joined in the efforts and suddenly everything seemed and was made possible.” Each room would have physiological monitors and central stations alarming. A real NurseCall system was in place. And in the background, the PennChart team built everything needed to support those beds.
“These efforts during such unprecedented times display what can be achieved when talented employees with unlimited passion work collaboratively with their colleagues for the betterment of our patients and the overall community,” said Michael Restuccia, chief information officer and SVP.
“This all was a test of what we’ll need to do in 2021” Gallagher said. “People were anxious about, ‘How will we do this?’’ Now we know: we can.”