Australia’s fully integrated digital hospital, St Stephen’s Private Hospital in Hervey Bay, officially opened on 8 December 2014. The $96 million St Stephen’s Hospital is run by UnitingCare Health and is described by Health Minister Peter Dutton as “the Australian benchmark in automated patient care.”
Wood & Grieve Engineers (WGE) were contracted to provide electrical, mechanical, and vertical transportation services at St Stephen’s including critical engineering systems such as power supply and air conditioning.
Digital technology is seen as the future of healthcare – patient health records and results are updated and accessible on tablets and mobile devices throughout the hospital, personalised food and medication can be managed electronically and practitioners can log in at any time to see what a patient is doing in real time without the need for chasing paper charts throughout the system.
The technology-focussed St Stephen’s project necessitated an innovative approach to engineering. According to WGE’s Electrical Section Manager, Ashley Holm, the biggest challenge was “to come up with an engineering design that was resilient, reliable and user friendly.”
Reliability and practicality were key drivers of the project’s success. The on-site data centre and air conditioning systems required particular attention as full functionality was essential even during power supply outages. The entirely digital hospital design used over 300km of fibre optic cable. To ensure system resilience, full redundancy in the fibre optic cabling and ICT power infrastructure have been provided to minimise downtime and future proof the facility.
“Close and continuous engagement with the eHealth designers as well as the client’s operational team helped us to realise an effective design solution that will serve the hospital well for the life of the facility” explained Mr Holm.
“Being part of a digital hospital design team was a fantastic opportunity to work with a multitude of stakeholders from different backgrounds. The collective goal of delivering Australia’s first digital hospital really gave the team a tremendous incentive and helped to foster a collaborative project environment.”
With increasing opportunities to shift Australia’s commercial properties into the new era of digitally driven design, innovative thinking at the design stage and the cultivation of team collaboration is crucial in the development of technology-focussed engineering projects such as St Stephen’s hospital.
