Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Fourth Floor Inpatient Units – South Addition

Murray Associates provided architectural services in conjunction with general contractor R.S. Mowery & Sons, Inc., to convert a former therapy area into a 14 room intensive care suite.  The 11,100 square foot suite was designed from schematic-level bridging documents provided to the team, and includes 3 bariatric rooms as well as 2 isolation rooms with connecting ante room. All rooms are single rooms, and include private toilet and shower. Toilet rooms were designed to have hospitality feel with full tile walls and floors. All patient rooms feature sliding doors with emergency breakaway feature.

The suite includes complete support spaces, including clean and soiled utility, nutrition room, staff lounge and lockers, residents work area, medications room, and equipment storage rooms.  A unique family waiting area serves the suite, and is fully equipped with private accessible toilet and shower, along with medical gases, nurse call, etc. in anticipation of a rapid transformation to a patient room if required.

Patient rooms in the suite are subject to intense monitoring, and five nurse stations are located strategically for efficient line-of-sight observation. The suite is adjacent to a similarly sized floor area for which a renovation is being planned as an extension of this functional area.

Because of existing functions both adjacent and below the space, careful design was required to allow efficient coordination of the construction, and ICRA requirements were critical issues.  The suite required new ductwork throughout as well as a new, dedicated air handling unit.  Access to the mechanical space above the suite for installation of the unit was challenging, and required installation of permanent access panels in the roof above the mechanical space. The mechanical space itself required substantial structural modification (infill) to support the new air handling unit.