Building Vital Spaces: Our Approach To Healthcare

Healthcare facilities are vital in our communities, providing essential spaces for recovery, diagnostics, and the ongoing pursuit of health and well-being for our friends and family. At Kent Design Build, we deeply value the trust placed in us to support these critical institutions. We are honored to contribute our services to every healthcare project that we undertake.

Infectious control is one of the more challenging aspects of healthcare builds that is unique to the industry. When a previously completed building requires further renovations or expansions, such as with our renovation of the Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, internal operations cannot shut down for months on end while construction is occurring. This is why special parameters need to be put in place to ensure the safety of both our workers and any patients or staff present in the building.

Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center required renovation of the third-floor rooms. The entire floor was blocked off, and a STARC system was put into place, partitioning off any areas of occupied space with airtight temporary walls to minimize disruptions on either end while still keeping safety at the forefront of our renovation.

Only when safety measures are put into place can our team begin construction. For Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, this meant a room expansion in addition to making each patient room have negative air pressure. Negative air pressure rooms are lauded for their disease control, as the lower air pressure prevents airborne disease from flowing out of the room into the hallways, allowing staff to treat more contagious patients without risking the health of the whole hospital. Our team was able to accomplish this by installing supply air that is continuously pumped into the room, along with return outlets that allow the air to stay low pressure 24/7.

It’s a delicate process. Rooms must be fortified to protect from any potential air leaks that may adjust air pressure levels, jeopardizing the safety of patients and staff throughout the hospital. Luckily, our team was able to convert each and every proposed room as a negative pressure room by the end of our construction process.

This, of course, was a renovation, but Kent Design Build has plenty of experience with ground-up healthcare builds, such as Lafayette General, a medical facility in Broussard, Louisiana, that features three separate tenant spaces. By coming in early in Lafayette General’s process, we were able to keep and stick to a budget, leading to the building not only being finished in a timely manner but also within the proposed budget.

Lafayette General features an imaging suite, wellness suite, and internal medicine suite, each coming with its own obstacles that KDB was able to tackle head-on, successfully completing the 11,000-square-foot build. For example, the imaging suite required a room suited for a CT scanner, which challenged our team to complete the electrical wiring for the equipment before the scanner was even in the building. A template had to be used to demonstrate positioning, so our team knew exactly where to put the wiring.

In addition to this, the floors had to be reinforced to support the weight of the machine, along with the inclusion of lead-lined sheetrock to all walls to limit any radiation exposure that could come from the machine. We also ensured that all the doors and windows were also lined with lead, and this safety precaution was extended to the x-ray room, where radiation exposure was also a concern.

Other features of Lafayette General include a stress test room, individual exam rooms, doctor’s offices, a business center, and a large waiting area with tons of natural light to create a welcoming atmosphere. Lafayette General was a particularly exciting project due to our early involvement in the process. Collaboration and creative input is a specialty of Kent Design Build, so it is always a joy sharing that skill with the healthcare industry. That being said, whether it’s a project big or small, we take every project with the same importance and commitment to quality. It’s just one of the reasons why so many healthcare projects are entrusted to Kent Design Build.

Want to learn more? Check out our other healthcare builds below!