COORDINATED REGISTRATION AND ADMISSIONS

Transparent patient intake process

MMA reconfigured patient intake patterns as part of St. Mary’s largest capital expansion. Outpatient registration had been handled in the ED intake area and for a 40,000 visit ED this was not patient friendly. MMA’s solution consolidated inpatient registration and outpatient admissions, same day surgery and inpatient surgery case scheduling, and adjunct scheduling operations to make the patient/ organization interface as transparent , friendly and as organized as possible. The new service is located not more than 75 feet from the patient parking deck and just across the main lobby from vehicular drop-off. All coordinators, intake personnel and volunteers are in visual contact with one another and patients/ families are always connected with a person. The new atrium is a calming, organizational feature that is designed to initiate the wayfinding process in an understandable way. Reorganizing the patient intake process was not even addressed in the former Top 10 architect’s long range facilities plan. MMA is expert at distilling key functional flaws within a healthcare setting and proposing creative, cost saving solutions.

MMA was awarded Mission Impossible for this rooftop expansion after St. Mary’s dismissed the former Top 10 Healthcare architect for not sticking to budget. The need to implement this program to capture available market place beds was critical. MMA’s mission was not only to put the project back on track but to also increase unit size from 16 to 20 beds with little additional space. MMA configured an efficient net to gross circulatory concept that worked within an extremely limiting existing floor structure that greatly constrained plumbing and mechanical rough- in placements. MMA utilized all future floor load bearing capacity of the existing underlying bed tower to meet new stringent seismic design cri -

Mission Impossible:

-Fit 20 beds in roughly the same square footage and budget as the original architect’s 16 bed scheme and maintain $1.68 M construction cost.

-Meet newly enacted IBC 2000 seismic requirements on an existing 1970’s structure.

-Immediately create a Phase 1 partial 2 bed unit to capture 2003 Medicare reimbursement advantage.

-Construct over an ICU Unit at the front entrance.

-Seven month construction schedule which included a $2.5 million Infrastructure/ utility backbone.