How to Plan for a Successful Construction Project – Our Healthcare Facilities Symposium Panel Re-Cap

How the Loma Linda University Medical Center Project Tracked 59k Inspections and Maintained a 91% success rate: Our Healthcare Facilities Symposium Panel Wrap-Up

The FreightTrain team just returned from the Healthcare Facilities Symposium in Long Beach, CA. The Healthcare Facilities Symposium & Expo is a multi-disciplinary event that brings design, construction, and management teams together to discuss ways to advance healthcare delivery through physical spaces. 

This year, our Director of Operations, Diana Silva, was invited to moderate a panel discussing the recent construction project for Loma Linda University Medical Center. The Loma Linda project team used FreightTrain’s QCView software to improve quality control. In case you couldn’t attend, we’re sharing a recap of the panel discussion. 

The Panelists

• Eric Schilt, Vice President of Planning, Design and Construction at Loma Linda University Health,

• Tyler Bashlor, Owner of Strategic Building Services, 

• Eric Hoffman, the VP of McCarthy Building Companies,

The Construction Challenge

The panelists shared their experiences and lessons learned during the construction of the new Loma Linda University Medical Center and Children’s hospital, a 16-story hospital building that houses two licensed hospitals. The new building was built to withstand major earthquakes under newly updated California seismic codes for acute care facilities. 

To meet these seismic safety standards, the HCAI (formerly OSHPD) required the project team to complete almost 60,000 inspections to receive the Certificate of Occupancy. The massive number of inspections placed significant demands on the entire team. 

Despite the challenges, the project was a huge success. The Dennis and Carol Troesh Medical Campus held its ribbon-cutting ceremony in August 2021. 

Here are the four recommendations from the panel on ensuring your next healthcare construction project is successful.

1) Plan for Success

The project’s success would not have been possible without FreightTrain QCView, an automated solution for tracking and reporting the inspection status. Tyler Bashlor noted that QCView was phenomenal and helped with all the documentation required to support the inspection process. All the inspections and supporting documents needed were easy to get to, eliminating the need to search for required paperwork often stored in siloed systems.

Ensuring you have the right planning tools is the first step towards a successful project activation. 

2) Measure Inspection Performance

Eric Hoffman said that it was critical to have a system to track the location and status of the inspections. FreightTrain’s Visual Fragnet and the Location Reference Drawing (LRD) tools met this need. 

3) Resolves Issues as they Arise

The panelists described the construction issues they faced during the project. They agreed that the reports generated by QCView were invaluable  – they could always see new issues immediately. 

 

4) Project Communication

One of the things frequently mentioned during the panel was the importance of a strong partnership between the owner, the contractor, the IOR, and HCAI. Eric Schilt from LLUH stressed how closely they worked with the HCAI team and how that helped keep everything on track.

We’ve enjoyed working with everyone on this construction project to ensure a successful activation!

QCView automates the processing, tracking, and reporting of quality metrics for inspections for construction and renovation projects. Schedule a demo today to see how QCView can make your next construction project inspections a breeze!