Abstract

Swedish Health Services is a five-hospital system in Washington state, USA, affiliated with Providence Health & Services, which owns and operates 51 hospitals across seven states. Swedish First Hill is the flagship hospital of the system and one of the largest not-for-profit health providers in the Seattle metropolitan area. In order to meet strategic, operational, and clinical goals, the transformation of Swedish First Hill will modernise every building and system, and implement a district energy strategy that will create the first carbon-negative healthcare campus in the US by 2030.

Application: The project comprises 1,000,000 sq ft of new construction, 250,000 sq ft of renovation, and upgrades to existing systems and infrastructure. The North Tower includes: a new emergency department; diagnostic imaging; 24 new operating rooms; nine cath/EP rooms; and 216 ICU beds. Block 95, a new outpatient tower, provides: 600 new parking stalls; a loading and logistics centre; a conference centre; and more than 300,000 sq ft of clinical space to accommodate the Swedish Cancer Institute. In addition, the project involves an alley vacation, two new skybridges, and a tunnel. The project is under construction and will be operational by the first quarter of 2026.

Implementation: This talk will describe the three primary steps to implementation:

Step 1 – First Hill Sustainability and Resiliency Initiative

• Implement building analytics software;
• Identify and monitor measurable energy and carbon reductions;
• Leverage sustaining initiatives to obtain utility funding grants; and
• Reduce fossil dependencies without compromising resiliency.

Step 2 – Systems and infrastructure modernisation

• Satisfy state sustainability and environmental mandates;
• Install smart buildings advanced fault detection and diagnostics;
• Realise $2.1m in energy savings and utility incentives; and
• Install heat recovery infrastructure.

Step 3 – Carbon Negative Campus by 2030

• Implement campus-wide heat recovery piping expansion;
• Finalise design and documents for carbon-neutral campus;
• Minimise greenhouse gas emissions;
• Maximise waste-heat recovery; and
• Construct micro-heat recovery plants.

Implications: As we continue to mitigate the impacts of climate change, the energy demands of healthcare campuses, rising healthcare costs, a pandemic, and escalating construction costs, it is incumbent on those of us engaged in healthcare design to be exemplary stewards of precious and limited resources. This project will manifest the owner’s commitment to its mantra, ‘Health for Good’.