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June 17, 2015

Whether you’re looking on or up from a surgical table, the VGH OR expansion is good news.

Will we build to minimize OR disruptions?

Work is progressing on the design of a new perioperative suite for VGH. The VGH OR Renewal Project includes replacing the 22 ORs on Jim Pattison (JP) 2 with an entirely new perioperative suite of up to 30 ORs on JP 2 and JP 3. Sufficient pre- and post-op care beds and space for equipment/supply storage, support service areas — and even staff lockers — are also part of the plan.

Looking ahead, one VGH OR nurse emailed the project team with a question about how we’ll build our new ORs. Read on for her question and the team’s answer.

Question

I’m an OR nurse at VGH with 30-plus years’ experience, and have seen several large physical changes in VGH, including the construction of the JP Pavilion. The other day I talked with a fellow who was doing repair work in the OR on a leaky pipe and mouldy spot in the ceiling. What he said about how newer buildings in Europe are constructed really amazed me. Instead of putting the pipes, wires, cables, etc. above the ceilings, they were housed in the walls in spaces that could be accessed easily by workers at any time, without disturbing any activity in the facility. I wonder if such an idea could be incorporated into the plans for our new facility?

Answer

This is a very interesting question. The Facilities person you were speaking with was most likely referring to a prefabricated wall system that provides reasonably easy access to the services, pipes, wires and cables running vertically within them. Prefabricated ceilings are used in some buildings, too

The JP Pavilion was constructed with its main services — plumbing, cabling, etc. — running horizontally through an extra floor (also call an interstitial floor) that sits above each patient care floor. A person can walk through this floor without disrupting patient care operations on the floor below to easily access services in need of attention.

While many services travel horizontally across the interstitial floor above the ORs today, others don’t. When JP tower was constructed, running some services vertically to serve the various rooms and equipment in the OR suite was unavoidable. That was more than 30 years ago and these same services are in need of more attention as they age. Unfortunately, this maintenance can be disruptive to the OR suite.

The good news is that the VGH OR Renewal Project will replace all walls and services of the OR suite, and we’ll be considering these prefabricated systems when we reach the detailed design phase in 2016. While these systems can simplify access to infrastructure, they also come with a higher price tag, and we have to determine whether the benefits outweigh the costs over the long term.

The VGH OR Project Team

Got a question?

The VGH OR Project Team welcomes your comments and questions. Please send them to onevancouver@vch.ca and use the email subject line: “VGH OR Renewal”.

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