What makes Montreal’s new "superhospital" so super?

The new $1.3-billion Montreal “superhospital” will be turned over to professional staff “provisionally” this fall, when rooms will be outfitted with medical equipment, with patients being admitted in summer 2015.

The hospital, also known as the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), almost a generation in discussion and planning and for which construction began in 2010, will set new standards among Canadian hospitals. These include entirely single–patient rooms, larger rooms, a more holistic social approach that includes family members and interior finishes designed to protect against infections.

The hospital, a few kilometres west of Montreal’s downtown core and nestled in a high density neighbourhood between a commuter rail line and an expressway, will be the new home of the Montreal Children’s Hospital, Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal Chest Institute, Shriners hospital and a cancer centre.

By the new year a great amount of the interior had been completed or near finished including drywall, plaster, flooring and drop ceilings.

“There’s not a lot of hospitals in Montreal that have all single rooms,” said Robert Porcheron, design coordinator for SNC-Lavalin, the MUHC’s main contractor.

The 500 rooms are larger than existing rooms with the new patient rooms measuring 22.65 and ICU rooms 27.7 square metres.

The rooms will feature picture windows — almost two by two metres — offering some spectacular views of the city and beyond and will incorporate innovations like alcoves with large reclining couches for visiting family members. Rooms will also have large bathrooms with showers and there will be sinks for staff next to the doorways.

The ICU rooms have been arranged in a long row, alongside medical intervention areas, with frequent windows allowing medical staff wide supervision of patients with severe needs.

“We didn’t go too tight, it’s very functional,” Porcheron said.

Ambient outdoor neighbourhood noises — especially trains and vehicular highway traffic — are loud but you’ll almost be able to hear a pin drop inside patient rooms.

“They did a lot of tests and surveys to provide all the sound transition class (STC) requirements,” Porcheron said, with north and south windows — those bearing the brunt of sound — at 45 STC and 50 STC for the walls, based on American Institute of Architects’ hospital guidelines.

“We put enough wood and studs and layer of gyp rock to achieve the STC,” he said.

More than a decade ago several Quebec hospitals were ravaged by the C. difficile virus — killing more than 100 patients — so this hospital’s planners were determined to prevent contamination. As a result, MUHC clinical areas are being built with no wall joints, full flooring and with millwork brought to the ceiling to prevent any spaces for dust collection.

“All details were studied to avoid any kind of corner, or empty space, too narrow, to make a good cleaning,” Porcheron said.

Ventilation was also designed so that if there is contamination, hospital areas can be isolated from one another.

“All the floors, all the openings, are completely sealed. All the systems are made to bring the fresh air directly and not to contaminate the rest of the hospital,” said SNC-Lavalin spokeswoman Diane Rivard.

Another innovation is the furniture in public waiting areas.

The emphasis is clearly on integration regardless of peoples’ body shapes or sizes. With a nod to the growing number of obese people in society the hospital has ordered oversized chairs.

“The chair is very heavy and it’s difficult to move,” Porcheron said.

Other chairs are designed for people who have mobility problems. The chairs are higher and narrower with less depth and armrests are at special heights.

Overall, Porcheron said, these unique chairs are integrated into the waiting areas and not set aside where people could be segregated and stigmatized.

Meanwhile, the four main atriums connecting the different institutions each has its own “branding colour” with coordinated hallways and wayfinder signs, and rely on natural sunlight as much as possible.

“We had to build a hospital but in reality (it was) several hospitals,” Porcheron said.

“So, the first challenge was to mix all those entities into one hospital and keep each entity different. For health purposes we think it’s a good idea.”