Case Study: Hermann Hospital

Houston, Texas

Project Overview

Members of Bluegate’s Professional Services Division represented Hermann Hospital and were responsible for working with the design team from Watkins Hamilton Ross Architects to develop the voice, data and video technology and cable infrastructure requirements and specifications for the new Hermann Pavilion, a $200 Million Dollar, 800,000 square foot facility housing 229 patient beds. Bluegate’s team member designed and wrote the specifications for the "Hospital of the Future" including the cable infrastructure for voice, data and video applications, wired and wireless voice communications, nurse call systems, data systems and telemetry. Bluegate wrote the technology migration plan used to move entire departments, including the Emergency Room and Level 1 Trauma Center and LifeFlight dispatch center, Houston's largest LDRP unit as well as the entire Hermann Children's Hospital, a 150-bed full-service dedicated children's hospital including the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Children's Pediatric Special Care Units.

Telephone Equipment Room Planning

Hermann Hospital and Hermann Children's Hospital are located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston Texas. Hermann Hospital is a is a tertiary care center with a level-1 trauma center and a level-3 neo-natal nursery. Hermann's campus runs adjacent to Braes Bayou and the surrounding area is frequently flooded.

In the mid 1990's, Bluegate’s team member was Director of Telecommunications for Hermann and the Project Manager for the implementation of a new voice communications network, which included a new campus-wide cable plant and the migration of over 6,500 users from a Plexar System (a central-office based telephone service) to a networked Nortel PBX and a single voicemail system.

As a part of the planning process, negotiating for real estate for a new telephone switch-room and new wiring closet was critical to the success of the project. As always, there was no free space within any of the hospital facilities that was suitable, and the only area that could have sufficient space carved out for a new telephone switch-room was in the basement of the oldest building on campus, next to the morgue.

Although it was argued that the basement, an area prone to flooding, was not a suitable home for a new $3-Million Dollar system, the battle was lost and the telephone equipment was relegated to the basement. In making the best of a bad situation, Bluegate was still determined to protect the new system as much as possible. Our project manager worked with the Architect and the Hospital's Facilities Department to make the new telephone switch-room as flood-resistant as was possible. The switch-room was designed with an 18" raised floor and all of the cabling, both voice and electrical, was fed into the room through the use of overhead racks. No cabling was run under the raised floor; however, air conditioning ductwork was housed under the floor. As an additional waterproofing step, a 12" concrete curb was installed under the raised floor.

During Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, Hermann Hospital was forced to close and transfer all of their patients to other facilities due to the enormous flooding and loss of commercial power, however the concrete curb and the 18" raised floor kept the telephone system and its batteries and rectifiers dry. The system provided vital communications within the hospital and to the outside world and ran until the batteries were drained. When commercial power was restored - the telephone system rebooted and worked and was one of the few telephone systems within the Texas Medical Center that did not sustain significant damage