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Mount Pleasant, WI

Aurora Medical Center in Mount Pleasant

How do you leverage Lean IPD to transform healthcare delivery?

aurora-medical-center-mount-pleasant

Facts and Figures

296,000 square feet

September 2021

Delivery Method
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD / IFOA)

The New Standard in Healthcare Construction

Advocate Aurora Health is passionate about transforming healthcare delivery and helping people live well through innovation. When they set out to bring transformative healthcare to a new market, Mortenson was ready.

We partnered with HGA Architects & Engineers, Westphal Electric, and Martin-Petersen Mechanical to help our customer build the first Advocate Aurora Health hospital in this region. By following Lean construction practices, using a One Model approach, and implementing prefab from the start, our high-performing team has been able to deliver on this project faster than we ever thought possible. And we owe much of our success to the respect and trust we’ve established as a collaborative and truly integrated team.

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How would I describe the project? Dynamic. Challenging, always. But exciting! We've had a really good team, from the architect to our general contractor [Mortenson] and all the trade partners. We’re doing some really cool, innovative things that people have really gotten behind to help us meet our goals.
KAREN MCKENZIE, DIRECTOR, PLANNING, DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION, ADVOCATE AURORA HEALTH – MT. PLEASANT
KAREN MCKENZIE, DIRECTOR PLANNING, DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION, ADVOCATE AURORA HEALTH – MT. PLEASANT

IPD In Action 

While many factors are playing into the project’s success, everything starts with IPD – the respect and trust of the teams, our shared risk/reward, and our collective belief in the customer’s mission to help people live well.

Challenge: Understanding the Goals

Advocate Aurora Health set very lofty goals on this project, including 40% prefab and modularization, along with a 25% diversity goal and the pursuit of LEED certification. They also had an aggressive timeline with an emphasis on reducing waste, and they put a premium on safety, quality, and teamwork.

Solution: Implementing Lean IPD

From the very start of the project, the team came together in an IPD contract that broke down communication barriers and empowered everyone to succeed. We collaborated to establish our target design, cost, and schedule goals up front. We also implemented prefab into the design drawings right away and have carried it out through procurement, delivery, and installation.

To accomplish our prefab goals, we established a manufacturing facility close to the job site, where we could design and build multi-trade racks, bathroom pods and exam room pods (a first for Advocate Aurora Health). This approach increases safety by reducing job site congestion, and it provides an extra level of quality control. Our use of lean tools such as A3s, pull planning, 5S, gemba walks and kaizen events further enable job site safety while reducing waste and eliminating inefficiencies.

Throughout the project, we have followed a One Model approach that helps manage costs and track design changes, with a focus on getting the right design quality while finding the best and maximum value for the customer. Everyone participates in the decision-making process, with a collective drive to do what’s best for the project and our customer.

Project Highlights

2%

Budget variance maintained

$25M

Cost avoidance

$8M

Value-add program space

$1.3M

RFI cost savings

Results: Meeting the Needs of a Growing Community while Supporting the Care Team

This project resulted in a state-of-the-art, 296,000-square-foot healthcare complex that will meet the needs and expectations of our customer while promising to bring transformative healthcare to this growing, thriving community in Wisconsin.

Comprising a medical center and an adjacent medical office building, the complex offers inpatient and outpatient care, surgical services, as well as ancillary services that include rehabilitation, imaging, laboratory, and a pharmacy.

  • The 198,000-square-foot medical center includes 60 surgical and intensive care beds, four observation beds, five operating rooms, two procedure rooms, and 30 prep and recovery bays.
  • The 98,000-square-foot medical office building houses a variety of outpatient services, with approximately 24 specialty providers, along with sports medicine and rehabilitation services and a small conference center

  • Improvements for the care team

  • Collaborative spaces with flexibility
  • Moveable furniture solutions
  • Improved ergonomics in respite/break rooms
  • Enhanced touch down spaces
  • Integrated series of work rooms and quiet rooms to limit inefficiencies
  • Re-dedicated exam rooms for increased telehealth services

In addition, Advocate Aurora Health is seeking LEED Silver certification for the project, to promote sustainability and environmentally friendly development practices.