If you thought moving to a new home was hard, wait until you hear about moving hospitals.
In recent months, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Arthur M. Blank Hospital and Wheat Ridge, Colorado-based Intermountain Health Lutheran Hospital moved all their equipment and patients from an old campus to a brand new one, to name just a couple of examples.
The key, Intermountain’s leader said, is having a good team and mapping out a strategy ahead of time.
“Taking action to start developing your plan is really the most important thing, and surrounding yourself with an amazing team and resources to help you achieve your goals,” Casey Bogenschutz, director of strategic initiatives and lead project coordinator for Intermountain’s move, said.
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. On September 29, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta completed its move in a single day.
The pediatric acute care children’s hospital transferred 202 patients in under 12 hours from the now-closed Egleston hospital to the 446-bed newly constructed (and more spacious) Arthur M. Blank Hospital about three miles away, according to a press release.
The day of the move involved 65 ambulances and coordination with more than 15 state and local agencies, including local police departments, the release said.
Moving day was only a fraction of the work, however.
The system had been planning for the new hospital for over a decade and coordinating move day for more than two years, Linda Matzigkeit, chief administrative officer of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, told Healthcare Brew in an emailed statement.
Outside logistics consultants helped create a moving day plan complete with “minute-by-minute details” and “exact paths of travel, transport modality, and resources.”
“Due to our meticulous planning, attention to every minute detail, and multiple contingency plans, we had almost zero surprises during the move,” Matzigkeit said.
Intermountain Health Lutheran. Bogenschutz, too, credited Intermountain’s successful move to careful forethought.
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The hospital moved 121 patients using about 20 ambulances on August 3 to the new $680 million Intermountain Health Lutheran Hospital about 3.5 miles away, Bogenschutz said.
Leaders began planning the move two years prior, assisted by HTS, a company that helps hospitals and health providers coordinate location changes and expansions.
In the first 18 months of planning, the hospital established six different committees that each focused on a specific aspect of the move, slowly crossing off “small chunks” of duties one at a time, Bogenschutz said.
In January, the committees’ planning shifted to moving day, a process that included creating a 60-page document outlining the process. The hospital also conducted several dry runs with ambulances prior to the actual move.
The team moved as much equipment as possible before the big day, but some essentials—like a telestroke service that allows remote physicians to diagnose patients via video—stayed at the old facility until the last patient left, Bogenschutz said.
Lessons learned. Bogenschutz, who had never planned a hospital move before, said the team was so well prepared that they even had fun on moving day.
In all, she said the process taught her several lessons. The first is one that may be familiar to some who have participated in group projects: “Done” is relative.
“As a caregiver on the front line, it’s done when I can put a patient in that piece of equipment,” she said. “People would say, ‘I’m done,’ and I had to ask them, ‘What does that mean to you? Because I think we are on different pages because I don’t think this is operational yet.’”
The second lesson learned? That she has a great team.
“People are capable of really incredible things, and under pressure, we did something really amazing,” she said.