Brockton Hospital renovates after electrical fire

A new electrical switchgear system powers the renovated facility.

Image by Pamela Bhatia of Artistic Images

When Signature Healthcare Brockton (Mass.) Hospital was damaged by an electrical fire in February 2023, leaders had their work cut out for them, and job No. 1 was to quickly find a way to provide patient care.

“We moved right away to mitigate the loss to the community,” says Brian Backoff, facilities director. “Immediately following the fire, we turned existing spaces at our satellite locations into two urgent care centers.” The hospital worked with Auburn Construction in Avon, Mass., to completely renovate and convert the facilities within three weeks.  

Leaders then turned to the unique challenges associated with reconstructing a 100-year-old building to adhere to today’s more stringent standards. 

“The electrical system needed to be replaced to meet modern fire code requirements. That project touched nearly every corner of the building,” Backoff says. When opening walls and ceilings, construction workers discovered other systems that needed to be replaced and brought up to today’s standards. 

This triggered a massive renovation to the bulk of the hospital, such as its nurse call stations, pharmacy, laboratory, emergency department, kitchen and main lobby areas. New medical gas, air-handling, plumbing, sanitation processing and security systems also were installed. 

Brockton worked with design firm SmithGroup in Detroit, project management firm Peregrine Group in Rumford, R.I., and Auburn Construction to build a 2,700-square-foot addition to house the new electrical switchgear for the facility, along with 23 new electric closets throughout the hospital to separate the normal and emergency power panels. 

Crews opened every corridor ceiling to feed the new panels for the switchgear. Space requirements for the new electrical closets forced the hospital to relocate numerous critical services. More than 125 heating, ventilating and air-conditioning units were replaced and re-piped. 

In the final analysis, leaders came away from the project citing lessons learned about infrastructure investment. 

“Older health care facilities carry unique challenges and risks that can be extremely costly and potentially catastrophic,” Backoff says. “Deferred maintenance is a major issue across the entire field. Hospitals face challenges around the cost of maintenance and proper resources to pay for it.”