Off-Site Construction (OSC) offers a wide range of benefits to the stakeholders in any complex construction project, including cost certainty, schedule and labor surety, seamless collaboration, leveraging BIM technology, and more. But when OSC is applied to specific vertical markets there is even more enhanced value.
This month, we look at key OSC differentiators in healthcare construction:
Infection control: Modular construction leads to reduced labor and time on-site. In the healthcare environment, those reductions mitigate the risk exposure for infection control (ICRA). This is particularly important for operating medical centers, where OSC approaches result in less airborne dust and dirt, and less scrap material waste.
Life safety: Reduced time and space requirements on site significantly diminish the interim life safety measures (ILSM) required for a project that are unique to healthcare environments. Such safety measures include emergency site egress, fire department access, and hot-work permitting, among others.
Clean spaces: Factory-built systems provide a high degree of control over materials used during manufacturing. Paint, solvents, adhesives, and similar materials are carefully selected and rigorously monitored in an indoor, controlled environment. Control of these materials translates into a cleaner jobsite, and ultimately, a healthier facility for patients.
Certificate of Need: Where local and state requirements stipulate the maximum medical center size using a Certificate of Need (CON) process, categorizing an off-site constructed utility plant as an ETL-listed component can unlock approved square footage for revenue-producing activities.
While these advantages don’t necessarily apply to every healthcare project, the Epsilon team has found the healthcare industry is well suited to leverage the value Off-Site Construction brings, particularly when it comes to Central Utility Plant projects.
