• Client RWJBarnabas
    Location Somerville, NJ
  • Client RWJBarnabas
    Location Somerville, NJ
  • Client RWJBarnabas
    Location Somerville, NJ

On the Boards

Somerset Medical Center Vertical Expansion

Challenge

As advancements in specialty services grow – treatment, surgery and recovery-wise – medical campuses are enhancing their services, such as orthopedics, to keep pace with demand. When a campus has nowhere to go but ‘up,’ overbuilds become creative and necessary options to consider. RWJBarnabas Somerset Medical Center engaged Array to lead the design of a multi-story vertical expansion to improve bed capacity and inpatient care.

Solution

After completing a feasibility study to determine if vertical expansion was viable, the team determined the physical structure, as well as the engineering infrastructure, was still sustainable for an overbuild and a two-story option was deemed most valuable from a cost and timing standpoint. A volumes study determined a 100-bed addition would serve the facility well into the future and allow for additional service line expansion beyond the present effort.

Result

During implementation, the Medical Center prioritized an acute adult physical rehabilitation unit as the first to go into the overbuild space. The two-story overbuild will serve to expand an important and currently underserved service line by providing inpatient recovery space to support the increase in orthopedic surgical volumes.

Collaborators

O’Donnell & Naccarato
LKU Group Inc.
Tim Haahs & Associates
Van Deusen & Associate