North Shore-LIJ Health System recently cut the ribbon for its new $50 million Katz Women's Hospital. The facility offers a new model for women's health care that includes obstetrics, gynecology, labor and delivery, infertility and reproductive treatment and diabetes education, among other services.
The 73-bed facility has been described as "hotel like" with spacious rooms with sofa beds that provide space for overnight guests, private bathrooms and showers, and meals that can be ordered from a restaurant-style menu. The facility boasts carpeted hallways, wood floors, refrigerators and flat-screen TVs in patient rooms. Each room is equipped with technology to allow the medical team to efficiently access patient records at their bedside. Families also have access to the Wi-Fi service.
Michael Dowling, president and CEO of North Shore-LIJ Health System said that the Hospital's maternity areas in the 1940s and 1950s often had four beds in a room. He further said, "If you give birth at LIJ or North Shore in the next year, you will have a private, deluxe room. These beautiful new facilities, combined with the highest level of medical expertise and service excellence, will make North Shore University Hospital and LIJ Medical Center the go-to destination for women's health services throughout the New York metropolitan area."
The architect, Stantec, along with the mechanical and electrical engineering firm, Lizardos Engineering Associates, P.C. performed the design that was constructed by Axis Construction.
It is anticipated that the project will receive both Platinum and Gold certifications from the U.S. Green Building Council, as it has been submitted under both LEED for New Construction and Commercial Interiors categories. The "green" environmental features include concrete made with recycled ash, solar shades to provide summer cooling and heat during winter months, individually controlled lighting and thermal comfort systems, installation of low-flow plumbing fixtures to achieve 40% reduction in water usage, light-emitting diode night lights, MERV 14 filters throughout, outdoor air delivery monitoring and CO2 sensors to insure indoor air quality and provide increased ventilation levels. Finally, the hospital employed both fundamental and enhanced commissioning of the building's energy systems in order to insure the facility's current and future sustainability.
Expanding upon existing infrastructure that is nearly 60 years old and land-locked in the heart of the hospital, the design team was faced with a number of challenges. The solution was carefully calibrated to minimize disruption to services and involved many non-conventional and innovative solutions, such as external building services distribution and off-site prefabrication of sections of the building. In order to minimize disruption to the patients during routine maintenance and servicing, all mechanical equipment was located outside of the patient floors, including 85 VAV terminal units that were installed in an accessible roof-top maintenance tunnel.
The success of this project relied heavily upon close coordination between the design team (Stantec and Lizardos), the construction manager (Axis) and the client.

Photo Credit: 2011 Halkin Photography LLC

Project team includes:
Architect: Stantec
MEP Engineer: Lizardos Engineering Assoc., P.C.
Construction Manager: Axis Construction
Plumbing Contractor: Sana Plumbing Corp.
Building Products: GC Building Products
Concrete Drilling & Cutting: Americore
Safety & Env. Consultant: Safety & Environmental Solutions
Electrical Contractor: Roland's Electric, Inc.
Structural Steel: Vulcan Iron Works, Inc. Tags: