Merit Health Care: North Central Bronx Hospital ICU Project

Photo by PDK Commercial Photographers LTD/Bernstein Associates

In just 60 days, the project team converted three hospital floors into a 120-bed intensive care unit to meet New York City’s urgent need for COVID-19 treatment facilities. Two additional floors were also converted into administrative space. Totaling nearly 81,000 sq ft, the fast-paced construction process required significant upgrades to building infrastructure without interrupting service to existing patient spaces. A highly collaborative problem solving process enabled the team to carve out a new switchgear room on a basement level and integrate new electrical feeders and oxygen supply tanks. Continually evolving information about the coronavirus required expedited mock-ups for critical project components, including various types of patient headwalls. Input from frontline hospital staff and other experts helped refine the design into high quality end products that were quickly integrated into the construction process. Patient bed stations are designed to serve as flexible, hybrid intermediate/critical care unit layouts, with electrical and medical gas connections mirrored on both sides of the bed. Nearly a third of the stations have connections for hemodialysis treatment.