Politics and Deadlines
By January 2010, WDM held a series of collaborative design charettes with the physician group and work was underway on the schematic design phase of their dream facility.
News of Kearney’s new hospital started a political tug-of-war between the physicians group and the area’s established hospital. In January a state law was introduced that would place a two-year moratorium on new hospital licenses in Nebraska after July 1.
Meanwhile, the Accountable Care Act, a federal healthcare reform law, placed a Medicare / Medicaid licensing deadline of December 31, 2010 for new physician-owned hospitals. Medicare and Medicaid licensing is critical for hospitals where reimbursements represent an average of 35% of their overall revenue according to Statista.com.
On March 9, 2010, the Kearney City Council approved plans for the first 40 acres platted for the development of the hospital, medical office building, and outparcels for additional medical offices or ancillary services, a skilled nursing facility and an assisted living facility.
“There was a little bit of panic when the bones were uncovered,” says Les Mock, WDM principal. “We couldn’t afford for anything to slow us down.” When bones are found during excavation, work is halted until the situation can be assessed by proper authorities to determine if the remains are animal or human, and if the site is of archeological significance. Thankfully, the bones were determined to be animal in origin and not of historical importance. Construction could continue at a rapid pace.
On March 10, production of the hospital’s precast concrete panels were started.
As the state law was being argued and the physician group was restructuring their new hospital’s ownership, the physician’s group requested a “reduced,” or core, hospital concept that could be completed and licensed by the July 1 moratorium date but thereafter be expanded in phases to meet the original hospital’s concept. Construction on the core hospital needed to begin in mid-March.
To meet this tremendous scheduling and coordination challenge, WDM dedicated more of their staff to the project team and took lead on Design Development of the core hospital while simultaneously Perkins+Will tackled the Design Development of the additions to create the full-scale hospital. Long hours and heated debates between design team members punctuated the hospital’s development, but the core hospital’s Construction Documents were completed and permitted within this aggressive time frame.
WDM then completed the Construction Documents on the full hospital during the summer of 2010 while concurrently overseeing construction administration.
