Background
Virginia Hospital Center is a not-for-profit, teaching facility providing comprehensive healthcare to Arlington County.
Challenge
Without additional room to grow on its existing campus, VHC faced an urgent need to expand its capacity to treat patients—both inpatient and outpatient. VHC reached an agreement with Arlington County for a land exchange where the hospital would receive a 5.6-acre parcel of land adjacent to the existing hospital campus. VHC proposed to seek zoning approvals to accommodate a new 250,000-SF outpatient pavilion on the new site, allowing for the renovation and expansion of inpatient services on the existing site. VHC’s proposed plans were met with pushback from the community due to concerns over the proposed facility’s impact on the neighborhood.
Solution
VHC engaged Hammes Healthcare as its project manager for the new outpatient pavilion in 2017. Hammes was instrumental in coordinating efforts in the approval process, including organizing the engineering and architectural expertise and preparing VHC every step of the process. Following a three-year design and review process, the County Board granted approval for the project. Construction of the new outpatient pavilion began in the third quarter of 2019.
Hammes was also engaged to provide Operational Readiness services in 2021--two years before project go-live. This allowed for a project approach in which project management, operational readiness, and transition planning were seamlessly integrated. Hammes provided comprehensive budget and schedule oversight, coordination of medical equipment planning, IT coordination, transition planning scheduling, and move planning. Hammes's operational readiness team included experienced clinical leaders who guided the development of patient and staff workflows, training documents, and mock scenarios to ensure confident and safe patient care in the new facility.
As the go-live date approached, Hammes proposed and facilitated the reduction of a planned two-phase departmental move into one phase to provide the construction team with more time for critical equipment installation and certificate of occupancy.
The VHC Outpatient Pavilion opened to patients in July 2023. Also included is a new 1,700-car parking garage, which will increase accessibility and convenience for patients.
