UNC Hillsborough Bed Tower Addition

UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus provides integrated, convenient, patient-centered care for patients in Hillsborough, NC, and surrounding areas. The existing campus includes an emergency department, outpatient surgery, inpatient services, and a medical office building, combining a community hospital culture with the innovative procedures and care for which the UNC Medical Center is known.

The addition of a new patient bed tower creates a system-wide destination for UNC Health’s inpatient rehabilitation services. The project implemented the next step in campus expansion outlined in the Master Plan, a new 102,000 SF patient bed tower to add 80 beds to the campus: 30 beds as rehab and the remaining 50 as medical-surgical beds. The facility was designed for future conversion of all of the patient rooms from medical-surgical to rehabilitation.

The design team performed a Functional Post-Occupancy Evaluation (FPOE) on the existing bed tower to identify opportunities for improvement for this project. The team documented their findings and presented them to the client. As a result, the team was able to increase the patient room size while consolidating support spaces to fit their needs. The patient rooms increased from 250 SF to 280 SF. Also, 100% of the patient bathrooms are ADA compliant, allowing a smooth conversion from medical-surgical focused patient rooms to rehabilitation patient rooms.

Our design team also led the user groups through an interactive Lean planning activity to help identify the guiding principles for the project.