Harlem Hospital is considering various options, including interstitial floors for mechanical equipment, O'Brien says. "What we've looked at here is an upside-down arrangement [in which] patients are on the lower floors and some support services are taken out of the basement and distributed in two or three floors in the building." With an interstitial floor scheme, ductwork does not need to travel as far as it would if the MEP systems were placed on roofs or in penthouses, she says.

Blackout Adjustments

After the 2003 Northeast blackout, HHC began installing emergency backup generators at various facilities in its multi-hospital network, O'Brien says. At Harlem Hospital, the generators were placed on the roof of its Martin Luther King Pavilion. Some of the transfer switches for the generators were left in the basement, however, because the hospital lost funding to relocate them, O'Brien says. The hospital would still like to relocate those switches to the roof as soon as funding becomes available, she adds.

While Harlem Hospital was not flooded, there was flooding about a block away. Consequently, HHC is seeking to conduct an MEP study for all its hospitals "to see what's in the basement that is critical to the hospital," O'Brien says.