University Medical Center New Orleans (UMC) is a highly complex $1.2B Level I Trauma Center supporting two separate medical schools and the residents of New Orleans. This new state of the art facility includes a 400-inpatient bed hospital with 18 operating rooms (two of them hybrid) and 6 interventional labs, 8 labor and delivery rooms, a 120-bed treatment room emergency department, and more than 150 ambulatory clinic exam rooms, plus an adult Level I trauma center. Imaging facilities include 7 CTs, 4 MRI’s, Intraoperative MRI suite, 6 Digital Mammography Suites, 4 R/F suites, 2 Chest Rooms, 4 Radiology Rooms, PET Scanner, 2 Linear Accelerators, 4 Nuclear Medicine Cameras, and SPECT/CT.
While the facility was originally designed for another entity, during building a transition was made so that UMC would occupy the building and manage operations. UMC did not participate in the initial technology design and was uncertain that all healthcare technology systems would integrate properly or deliver necessary functionality. Further, the existing technology staff was not accustomed to, or trained for, managing the significant transition process. With the stakes high and uncertainty looming, UMC needed assurance that systems designed for one organization would fit the needs of another. UMC contracted NV5 as Owner’s Rep to guide and oversee program verification, procurement, installation, implementation, integration, testing, and training of the various healthcare technology systems within the complex.
On Day 1 of operations, the healthcare technology systems originally designed for others were fully functioning to support LCMC, while also maintaining cost control and safeguarding quality assurance. The launch was an unqualified success: over 30 disparate hardware systems interfaced successfully, encompassing over 60 points of software integrations, with more than 340 miles of communications cable connecting over 9,000 end devices. Systems functioned to specification, delivering the critical communications environment required for today’s competitive healthcare ecosystem. All of this freed UMC’s valuable IT staff time for normal, uncompromised operations of existing facilities.
