Jupiter Medical Center, a not-for-profit hospital in Jupiter, Fla., recognized that its 1990s-era surgery department was outdated and undersized to handle its operational needs, including digitally integrated smart technology to accommodate complex surgeries. Specifically, the 29,500-square-foot department housed 10 operating rooms (ORs), each roughly 425 square feet.

Faced with a growing community and corresponding patient volumes, Jupiter Medical began looking for space for a new department.

“It was always either going to be in situ, nearby renovation/expansion, or an adjacent expansion,” says Tony Ruebsam, senior project manager at Northstar (St. Louis), which represented Jupiter Medical Center on the expansion. “Those were the only things we looked at from a workflow and logistics perspective.”

Recognizing an opportunity to leverage the existing surgical department’s adjacent infrastructure and service lines, the project team, including architecture firm ESa (Nashville), decided to build an 90,000-square-foot addition on the hospital’s south side where the existing surgery department was located.

The strategy kept construction costs down while also presenting opportunities for future phases of the project.

Opening the Johnny and Terry Gray Surgical Institute

Opened in February, the new Johnny and Terry Gray Surgical Institute houses 18 ORs, 16 private pre- and post-procedure rooms, 21 post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) bays, a surgical waiting room, central sterile processing suite, and new south entrance.

The 2-story building organizes surgical areas on the second floor, while sterile processing, staff offices and support spaces, a lobby, and security check-in desk are on the first level. Additionally, the former pre-op and recovery spaces are currently under renovation into offices and staff support areas.

Strategies for surgical department expansion

One of the biggest differences with the new facility is space, with ORs that are on average 50 percent larger than the previous department—or approximately 670 square feet, with two hybrid ORs measuring 1,000 square feet each.

The new surgical department design also adds in-room storage, which was almost non-existent in the former space where equipment was stored in the corridors.

“The staff went from really tight spaces to having ample room to work,” Ruebsam says. “Storage was their biggest complaint; they were cramped.”

The new department also includes alcoves along the corridors outside the ORs where staff can store supplies and equipment to have close at hand.

Project outcomes

Ruebsam says the project team spent a lot of time planning the design of patient corridors to improve operational flow in the new department. “You walk through a lot of facilities, and they’ve got zigs and zags everywhere,” he says. “Trying to push a patient down a corridor, you’re running into walls all the time.”

Here, he adds, long, straight corridors were prioritized to better support the transport team in moving patients throughout the department.

Additionally, the newly constructed and renovated space also is designed to be flexible to future needs. For example, the new ORs are sized to adapt to changing technology and equipment needs. “The way we’ve designed this, they can use it for really any number of things,” Ruebsam says.

Robert McCune is senior editor of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].