Bendigo’s hospital is quickly taking on a very different shape, with construction of this new $630 million state-of-the-art, acute healthcare facility well underway.

The new Bendigo Hospital is planned to rank among the best health services across Australia in terms of access, quality and efficiency. It also promises to be sustainable, energy-efficient and future-ready.

The hospital’s success will be dependent on a wide range of factors including patient experience and staff satisfaction; it will also be reliant on high quality, high performing building services systems.

Large-scale specialist mechanical and HVAC services are being designed and installed to meet the wide range of requirements in the new hospital; from straightforward systems serving administrative areas through to high criticality systems supporting operating theatres, critical treatment rooms and laboratory areas. A.G. Coombs in conjunction with local Bendigo area alliance partner, McCaig Air Conditioning, is delivering these mechanical services as part of the Lendlease design and construction team.

The installation will include around 35,000 pieces or 40 kilometres of ductwork, over 800 air-conditioning and ventilation fans, over 130 air handling units and fan coil units, and approximately five kilometres of pipework. 40 kilometres of wire hanging cable will be used to support ductwork, cushion heads and light weight services, and around 6,000 air grilles will supply and extract air within the hospital. These statistics reinforce that this is, indeed, the largest regional hospital development in Victoria.

Prefabrication methodologies are a key feature of the installation process. 47 vertical prefabricated services riser modules have been delivered and installed and the last of several hundred multi-service horizontal racks have been put in place in the hospital’s corridor ceiling spaces. These include innovative design features that reduce the extent of disruptive maintenance access required in patient areas. The use of large-scale prefabrication significantly reduces the amount of working-at-height and almost eliminates the need for oxy-acetylene hot welding on site; very substantially reducing site safety risks.

A.G. Coombs’ Building Information Modelling (BIM) expertise has helped streamline manufacturing, systems coordination and installation processes. Very few systems clashes have been encountered on-site, and where issues have been identified, the process to resolve on-site has been much simpler.

Acquiring information to support efficient and safe site installation processes has also been taken to a new level on this project by A.G Coombs with the innovative use of information technology systems. A.G. Coombs’ site foremen use tablet devices configured with purpose-built Apps to manage real-time information, to plan and track installation works, help manage site teams and compile project records.

The new facilities are due for completion in December 2016.

The new hospital facility and its services are very complex, and require a sophisticated construction process. It’s rewarding for all involved to see everything coming together, assisted by the implementation of an equally sophisticated building services process making use of BIM and prefabrication. We appreciate the dedication of A.G. Coombs and its local alliance partners and the quality of the mechanical services installation to date, and look forward to continuing our journey with the team in delivering a high quality, sustainable, and future-ready hospital to the Bendigo community. Gerard Dillon, Senior Services Manager, Lendlease