Mackay Base Hospital
Redevelopment
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Following a deepening need for improved hospital facilities for the Mackay region – spurred on by a growing population and major flood damage in 2008 – the redevelopment of the Mackay Base Hospital was a much-needed regional infrastructure and health investment, mitigating the need to rely on referral of patients further afield.
Overview
The transformative redevelopment delivered a technology-enabled (fully wireless), environmentally sustainable facility, blending new and refurbished areas, including 180 patient beds with capacity to increase to 318.
Complex decanting challenges influenced the final built outcome, which connects the building to landscape and offers patients calming outlooks.
The project won the JW Wilson Award for Building of the year at the 2015 Central Queensland Regional Architecture Awards.
Our Role
Our team was engaged to provide project management services and adopted a hands-on approach, with an office established in Mackay close to client stakeholders, designers, sub-contractors and IT vendors involved on the project.
We recognised the need to develop a staging and decanting strategy, as part of the master program, to provide certainty to the design, procurement and construction phases. This required a detailed analysis and understanding of constructability and program issues – overlaid with the complexities of live hospital operations. Simultaneously, we recognised the need to build in sufficient flexibility to the staging and decanting strategy to incentivise the Managing Contractor to implement innovative or alternative options as part of their construction methodology.
Key Challenge
Implementing technology (ICT) solutions suitable for enabling clinicians to communicate with remotely located patients or other health professionals was one of the project’s priorities. We achieved delivery of robust telehealth initiatives enabled by innovative communication infrastructure. In parallel, we maintained the hospital’s operational efficiency without compromise to health services or stakeholder relationships through close and continuous partnering with the wider project team.