Parkland Hospital sets standard for collaborative project delivery

Public spaces and circulation were kept on the exterior to optimize daylight and provide easier points of reference in navigation.

Images courtesy of HDR + Corgan © 2014 Andrew Pogue

Ask Hank Adams, global director of health for HDR, the Omaha, Neb.-based firm co-responsible for completing the Parkland Health & Hospital System project, and he’ll say that Parkland’s replacement hospital changed the health care design and construction industry by setting a new standard for collaborative project delivery.

Related Article

Project drives hospital rebirth

“Consider that Parkland had the foresight to select its team early and establish a collocated office where team collaboration could take place with full-scale room mockups,” Adams says. “The team established a multi-trade prefabrication warehouse adjacent to the new hospital for prefab construction of room pods, clinical headwalls and overhead mechanical-electrical-plumbing system racks. And the design and construction partners worked on the same shared building information modeling model, where design-assist subcontractors collaborated with the design team to elevate construction while accelerating the schedule.”

Project collaborators also had the opportunity to showcase various design and construction aspects of the project in more than 80 health care presentations given at various international and national conferences. The LEED Gold-certified hospital also has hosted numerous facility tours to share its success story with health systems from across the globe, including Canada, China and the Middle East.

“The innovative delivery model and lessons learned will continue to influence and improve the next generation of health care facilities,” Adams says. “The new Parkland Memorial Hospital truly achieved the team’s vision as the hospital of choice for Dallas County while fully delivering the project within the community’s budget and schedule requirements.”

What’s more, he believes the new hospital “will continue to live up to the challenges of teaching and training the next generation of health care professionals and transforming the medical district and neighboring community as a catalyst for community redevelopment.”