With only 10 weeks to go before Infusion Health hands over the keys to the new Vernon Jubilee Hospital Patient Care Tower, the public face of the tower has been taking on a new look recently.

The timber frame structure that will support the canopy over the main public entrance is now in place, and the entrance to the new Emergency Department has also been completed.

You’ll also notice the links between the tower and the existing building are finished on the outside. Wander indoors and you’ll see the finishing touches being put on the corridors that will link the two buildings.

The finishing of the interior of the building is moving ahead. Millwork, flooring and painting are almost complete throughout. Reviews are being conducted of the work done to date on the lower floors as Interior Health and Infusion Health ensure everything is built to high standards.

Major medical equipment, such as Operating Room and Exam Room lights, is being installed, as are OR booms. Most of the major equipment for the Medical Device Reprocessing department has arrived and is being installed. Commissioning – putting into operation – of mechanical and electrical systems is well underway.

The commissioning of the computer and technology systems is also in process, and the pneumatic tube system that will allow rapid sharing of test results and information between departments has now been linked from the new tower to the existing hospital.

Weekly tours are being conducted for staff and physicians who will be working in the new tower to familiarize themselves with the new spaces and processes. The summer will be spent installing equipment and ensuring all staff, physicians and volunteers are fully-oriented to the new tower. The extensive training is necessary so that when the first patient walks through the doors on September 26, there will be no noticeable difference in patient care.

View all the latest photos of the VJH Patient Care Tower.

Work has more or less stopped on the outside of the building until the spring. There is some work to do, but much of the paving and concrete work is done. A good chunk of the landscaping even got done before the snow flew.

Where the real excitement starts to build is on the inside of the building, where rooms are getting finished, equipment is being installed, and the future of hospital care in Vernon is really starting to take shape. Check out all of the photos of the new patient care tower and you can’t help but get excited.

As mentioned, the ground floor link between the new Emergency Department and the old hospital is complete on the outside, while the interior finishing is still underway. The ER itself is just waiting for equipment and finishing touches. Some rooms have been setup as “mockups” so staff who will work in the area can test the rooms and equipment to make sure everything is in the right place.

The second level, which houses the Ambulatory Care department, the Medical Device Reprocessing department, and the Cardio-pulmonary clinics, is the most complete of all the floors. Walking into the lobby, the finish detailing is beautiful, with tile floors and wood ceilings.

The Operating Rooms are slowly being outfitted with the equipment they need. These rooms will offer a tonne more space than is currently available to the surgical teams.

And you should see the new Women’s and Children’s floor. The Labour, Delivery, Recovery, Post-partum (LDRP) rooms are oases of calm – and even include a private bath – so having a baby in Vernon will be an entirely new experience.

Check out all of the latest photos of the building at www.buildingpatientcare.ca.

But inside is where the excitement is really starting to build. Walk into the Emergency Department entrance and you can see the sheer scope of the project and the difference in size from what now serves as the ER. The flooring, millwork and most fixtures are in and the painting is just about complete.

Doors have been installed on the ER exam rooms. That’s right, doors! And exam rooms! No more curtained beds. Patients will now be examined in private rooms with plenty of space and all the equipment the doctors and nurses need to do their jobs properly and efficiently.

The lobby of the Ambulatory Care department, where the main entrance to the new tower will be, is being tiled now and is looking fantastic. It’s incredible what big light-welcoming windows and large open spaces will do for a hospital.

As you move up the building, each subsequent floor is at different levels of completion. The big equipment such as booms and lifts for the Operating Rooms will be arriving over the next few months and getting installed. The Maternal Child floor is coming along, as are the Intensive Care / Coronary Care Units.

You may have noticed the big blue tarps strung between the new tower and the old hospital lately. Those are where links are being built to connect the two buildings. There will be five links: one underground, two at ground level, and bridges across the second and third floors. There will also be a pneumatic tube system that will allow lab and diagnostics to be shared between departments.

If you’re flicking channels on the tube this month, be sure to check out Shaw-TV. They were down at the hospital last week doing a feature on the tower and the Vernon Jubilee Hospital Foundation’s fundraising campaign for equipment for the new tower.

You can see photos of the tour we did with them – and some exciting new images of the first and second floors.

As you can see if you drive by the hospital, the scaffolding is now gone from the exterior of the building and it’s becoming apparent what the building will look like when it is completed.

The foundation and columns for the ground floor link between the existing hospital and the new Emergency Department have been poured, and the structures that will form the walkways between the two buildings at the second and third floors are under construction.

The work to link the two buildings was very complex and involved working in and around patient areas over the summer. The work went remarkably well thanks to the commitment and perseverance of Interior Health staff and physicians and the Graham Construction crews, both of whom worked really well together to minimize any affect on patients. We also want to thank our patients who were very understanding as the work was underway.

The interior of the new tower is also starting to look a lot like a hospital. The ground floor where the ER will be is almost complete. The second floor is not far behind. Flooring is well underway and the ceilings are going in. The third floor is also painted and the flooring is going in.

Major mechanical and electrical equipment continues to arrive and the work crews are running two shifts to keep up with the schedule.

The curbs and islands that will create the upper parking and drop-off area in front of the main entrance are installed, as are the curb and gutter for the road to the ambulance bays, and paving is well underway.

Meanwhile, VJH staff helped celebrate the beginning of the one-year countdown until opening of the new tower by participating in a staff town hall on September 23, featuring an inspirational presentation by Josh Dueck, local athlete and silver medalist at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. The new slogan for the one-year countdown is Health in Motion. The winning slogan was submitted by Maja Keast, executive assistant to the VJH Chief of Staff, and was selected out of 64 submissions from staff. More information and photos to come.

Maja Keast accepts award from Josh Dueck, Paralympian silver medalist, and Pat Furey, VJH Administrator, for her submission of "Health in Motion" as the slogan for the one-year countdown to opening of the Polson Tower at VJH.

Renovations to the current emergency entrance, lobby and patient dropoff went extremely well thanks to a very good working relationship between hospital staff and Graham Construction, the company doing the building. We’re pretty confident this great relationship will mean the renovations to build the bridge links will go just as smoothly.

The bottom floor where the new emergency department will be located is being drywalled and painted. The drywallers have also started work on the second floor, where the new main entrance, ambulatory care department and cardio clinics will be. Wall studs and rough mechanical and electrical work is underway on the third, fourth and fifth floors.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you may have heard we’d be starting on some renovations to link the front of the old hospital to the new tower, and you may be wondering why the work hasn’t started. Because the work will have such big impacts to the main patient dropoff and ambulance entrance, we wanted to make absolutely sure the work was done in an organized, phased manner so that there would be no safety concerns. That means we needed to get detailed drawings of the planned work. We needed to make sure access roads were up to standard. And we needed to get the signage and flag people in place to make sure that when people arrive at the site, there is as little confusion as possible.

The work will now begin some time in the next couple of weeks. We will keep you posted.

And just to remind you what the work will involve, a new main entrance will be constructed on the southwest corner of the current building. That will be followed by renovations inside the hospital. the volunteer information desk and security office will be relocated within the current lobby waiting area and a new waiting area will replace the current volunteer information desk.

A new ambulance entrance and access hallway to the emergency department will then be constructed, running from approximately the location of the current security office across the front of the building to the current ambulance entrance.

Upon completion of this work, the current ambulance entrance will be closed, and the new entrances will open.

The cold weather in early December hampered crews’ abilities to pour the concrete for the roof of the tower. But since the weather warmed up, the roof pour has been completed and construction is still two to three months ahead of schedule. There will be a celebration in the coming weeks to mark the “topping off” of the building. We’ll keep you posted on the dates.

The first through fourth floors have been closed in and are now being heated, which is a big help to the workers doing the electrical and mechanical work inside. (It’s a lot easier to do work such as installing pipe when you don’t have to wear gloves to keep your hands warm!)

The glass and glazing is approximately 60 to 70 per cent installed on the first five floors as well. The sixth, seventh and eighth floors have been tarped, and work will start again on those floors in the spring.

Each of the first four floors is at an advanced stage of electrical and mechanical roughin.

In fact, the drywallers will begin work on the first floor (the new Emergency Department) by the end of January.

The old duplex at the east of the construction site is currently being remediated in preparation for demolition. Once it has been taken down and removed, work will begin on the new parking lot in front of the main entrance to the tower.

In the meantime, Graham Construction, the company building the tower, is sealing off the fifth floor as a temporary “roof” so they can move construction activities inside for the winter months. Closing in of the first through fourth floors is now taking place.

The first floor is completely framed in now, and the mechanical and electrical rough-in work is 80 percent complete. The second floor is 90 percent framed and 60 percent of the mechanical/electrical rough-in is finished. The framing and mechanical/electrical work has just gotten underway on the third and fourth floors.

The old duplex at the southeast corner of the construction site will be removed by the end of November to allow final shaping of the new parking area in front of the main entrance to the Patient Care Tower.

Installation of the new storm lines and storm water retention tanks to the west of the current Emergency Department entrance is now complete, as is the reconfiguration of the parking area.

Watch for more work around the current ER entrance in the spring when the new Patient Care Tower is joined to the existing hospital.

If you’ve been to the construction project website lately (www.buildingpatientcare.ca) to have a look at the VJH webcam, you’ll notice there’s not much to see! The camera is as high as it will go. So, as the building walls are completed, we’ll start posting photographs of the ongoing construction work inside the building. Stay tuned for that!

Graham Construction is currently pouring the concrete for the sixth floor of the new Patient Care Tower, and expects to have the roof on by about mid-December. When they do, we hope to have a “building topping” celebration. This is a construction tradition, whereby when they put the roof on a building, they raise an evergreen branch or tree to “top” it off. Wouldn’t that be a great way to welcome the Christmas season!

The first two floors of the Patient Care Tower are larger than the five above them, so they have now poured half the roof at the back side of the building (north side, next to the old Alexander Wing). These floors will house the Emergency Department (first floor) and the Operating Theatres (second floor).

Exterior walls are being added to the first three floors so that Graham can work inside throughout the winter. The ER is being framed and roughed in with electrical and mechanical equipment. Construction will start this week on the “curtain wall” that will be the feature wall at the front entrance of the new building.

Installation of the new storm lines and storm water retention tanks is proceeding on schedule. The construction associated with this installation has been taking place to the west of the current ER entrance.

We want to thank everyone who works at or visits VJH for being so patient as we make these improvements to the hospital campus. We hope the work will be done by the end of October.

The second and third floors are completely poured, and the second floor (what will be the main floor) can be accessed from what will eventually be the main entrance on 21st Avenue. Graham Design Builders, the company constructing the tower, expects to have the structure of the tower complete by the end of November.

The Next Phase

Some pretty significant changes to the current hospital entrance, parking and access roads will be happening soon. The key changes are as follows:

• Aug-Oct, 2009: A new retaining wall will be installed and the service road rerouted on the east side of the hospital property.
• Sept-Oct, 2009: A new storm line will be installed southwest of the current entrance.
• Sept-Oct, 2009: New storm water collection tanks will be installed west of the main entrance. This will require temporary changes to parking.
• Oct-Nov, 2009: New retaining walls will be installed south of the current entrance.
• Mar-Apr, 2010: Construction of the public access link from the new Patient Care

Tower to the old hospital will take place, affecting the main public entrance as well as the public emergency entrance and the ambulance drop-off.

Watch for more information and signage about these changes. Please observe all parking regulations on and off the site. And thank you for your patience as we build patient care for all North Okanagan residents.

Building Patient Care in real time

The web camera we installed on the old hospital certainly shows the progress on the building. The construction is so far along that we’re going to have to move the cameras back in order to see the whole building!

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In an effort to ensure we do the best job for patients, we are seeking the public’s input.