Facebook

Aurora Medical Center in Summit

Crews Meet and Beat Deadlines

Imagine a detailed, state-of-the-art medical clinic being completed ahead of schedule. That's what the crews working on the new Aurora Medical Center in the Town of Summit have achieved. Aurora Health Care announced recently that the clinic portion of the medical center as well as the Vince Lombardi Cancer Center will open October 26, 2009 – ahead of schedule. The hospital portion of the medical center will open on schedule in early 2010.

After years of planning and preparation, workers broke ground on the new Aurora Medical Center in September 2007. A project of this size — 800,000 total square feet encompassing a hospital, a clinic, a cancer center and pharmacy — takes time, constant collaboration and the desire to continue learning while the building process is underway. These factors were taken into daily consideration by the entire project team including the building owner, general contractor, subcontractors, architects, engineers and craftspeople. They made this project, even with its ambitious timeline, one that will set the standard for a job well done.

Perhaps most impressive is the team collaboration that created efficiencies in the building process, which will affect not only the operation of the Aurora Medical Center in Summit, but future projects including the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton.

"There is no question that the level of interaction and communication helped us be as efficient as possible," Mike Lochmann, president of Staff Electric said.

According to Peter Balistrieri, public relations manager for Aurora Health Care, 25 percent of the Summit project team have been transferred to the Grafton project. Michael Day, the project manager from Hammes Corporation, a national leading provider of strategic planning, facility development and real estate services to the healthcare industry, explained that the transfer allows workers to take advantage of the knowledge that was gained while working on the Aurora Summit project and apply it to the next project. "When the crew goes from one project to a very similar project, they are up and running immediately," Day said.

Andy Ostrand, the senior project manager for M.A. Mortenson Company, the general contractor on the project, offered his thoughts on the smooth execution. "I believe much of the success of this project can be attributed to organization," he said. "We broke the job into small, more manageable projects. It makes a difference if you look at the entire project as either two, or even four, separate jobs."

Ostrand also credited the success of the project to a new quality control process Mortenson implemented specifically for the Aurora Summit job. "For this project, we focused a lot of resources on quality so we can deliver that for our customers," Ostrand said. He explains that the quality process included an inspection plan, which involved several more quality check points.

Day, who has worked on four Aurora hospitals with the same team, is ending his career with this job. As a result, this is a bittersweet project for the entire team. Aurora spokesperson, Balistrieri, not only credits Aurora's forward thinking when it comes to budgeting and assembling the project team, but also Day's knowledge and expertise with the projects.

"Aurora has enjoyed, and certainly benefited from, working with Michael Day on all of our projects," Balistrieri remarked. "His knowledge and attention to detail has played an integral role in the early completion of this project. All of us at Aurora Health Care wish him well in his future endeavors. He certainly can be credited with giving our patients in western Waukesha County an unmatched patient experience from a facility standpoint. Nearly everything in his architectural design is done with the patient in mind."

Power of One Newsletters