Allina Health System

Healthcare facility design and construction is a booming business, Allina Health SystemÔÇÖs Bill Dunham explains to Gary Toushek Allina Hospitals & Clinics is a not-for-profit regional health network headquartered in the Twin Cities and has 11 hospitals and 64 clinics (25 of them within hospitals) throughout eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Bill Dunham, director of facilities design and construction, is in charge of AllinaÔÇÖs facilities planning and construction services. ÔÇ£Our group provides design and project management/ownerÔÇÖs rep services to all our facilities. We receive project requests that vary from someone needing an office to building a new hospital. I have a staff of project managers that take charge of each project, request proposals from architects and construction services, and provide guidance to ensure that we bottle and budget the project accordingly, to include medical equipment, furniture and so on. WeÔÇÖre part of Allina Real Estate, which purchases the land for new facilities.ÔÇØ An in-house project tracking system allows the department to monitor 338 currently active projects in various stages, having a total value of $305 million; about 300 projects, mostly related to clinics, are completed each year.One major project currently under way is the construction of a new 38-bed hospital in Owatonna, Minnesota, at a total cost of $51.6 million. ItÔÇÖs a replacement for the outdated Owatonna Hospital and is a collaborative effort with Owatonna Clinic. The site is located on 20 acres of land donated by the Owatonna ClinicÔÇôMayo Health System several years ago (and recently valued at $2.6 million). The Minneapolis office of the architectural firm Hammel, Green and Abrahamson is designing the project, which includes 131,000 square feet, with options for future growth and expansion. Allina Hospitals & Clinics has committed $46 million to fund construction, equipment and furnishings. The remaining costs of $3 million will help fund the five Special Project Features (largely funded through philanthropic donations) identified by the local community in 2006, which include a Reflection Center, Community Resource Center, Professional Education Center, Owatonna Commons, and enhancements to the rehabilitation area. Completion of the new Owatonna hospital is slated for mid-2009.Another major project for the facilities department is an expansion of the emergency room (ER) at United Hospital in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The $24 million project will more than double the size of the ER, from 17 rooms to 36. ItÔÇÖs long overdue, according to the numbers; in the last few years emergency patients at United have averaged close to 40,000 for a department designed to handle 22,000. The project will be funded with $12 million that the City of St. Paul will raise through a bond sale (the city council approved a $500 million medical facility bonding package in conjunction with the City of Minneapolis). Another $12 million will come through philanthropic donations. The St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Shakopee, Minnesota has a new 60,000-square-foot medical office building. The $20 million project, which is a partnership between St. Francis and Frauenshuh (a leading commercial and healthcare real estate firm in Minneapolis/St. Paul), triples the space of its previous office building and connects the new building to the Medical Center. The new building houses an expanded Allina Medical Clinic on the first floor and rehabilitation services on the second, and it provides more specialty services locally, including orthopedic, neurological, spine and pain management.Another project in the works is a 1,500-square-foot renovation of the existing surgery area and a 2,600-square-foot renovation of the old outpatient clinic space at River Falls Area Hospital in River Falls, Wisconsin. The $3.1 million project will double the size of the current surgical area, adding two more operating rooms and two endoscopy suites for diagnostic screening.ÔÇ£The biggest initiative here at facilities,ÔÇØ says Dunham, ÔÇ£is to come up with Allina Health System construction standards that allow us to build a uniform health system that provides equal aspects in this large community that weÔÇÖre serving, that each site has the same amenities and space and requirements, no matter if weÔÇÖre in a rural Minnesota town or a large metro area, and enables us to get it to market as quickly as possible to sustain our growth.ÔÇØ┬á