Massive project to stock the new Royal Adelaide Hospital poised to start this week
AN event management plan on a colossal scale starts in earnest from Wednesday when technical completion of the $2.3 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital is expected.
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AN event management plan on a colossal scale starts in earnest from Wednesday when technical completion of the $2.3 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital is expected.
This milestone will see the flagship hospital gradually come to life as it moves into a 90-day “facility transition” period prior to “commercial acceptance” when the nRAH could theoretically open for business in mid-June.
A project code named Operational Readiness covers the enormous range of activities needed to ensure staff and services are ready to deal with patients on the day the nRAH opens.
This transition will see a mammoth movement of goods and people as SA Health turns a vast building into a functioning hospital. The carefully planned logistics exercise includes:
1942 pallets of equipment transported to the site, containing 24,708 types of hospital and medical consumables;
THESE will require 143 trucks to transport;
GOODS will be moved into 147 storage locations at the nRAH for medical stock such as syringes, bandages, dressing packs and medicines;
THERE also will be more than 10,000 individual items of equipment such as medication infusion pumps, patient monitoring equipment and operating theatre equipment to be tested and positioned;
240 detailed risk assessments will be undertaken on all departments and equipment types to ensure the new hospital is safe for staff and patients;
190 different vendors will work with biomedical teams to assist with the assembly, testing and installation of complex medical equipment such as X-ray and CT machines, pharmacy robots and blood testing machines;
MORE than 7000 people will undertake training on site.
NRAH commissioning director Elke Kropf told The Advertiser: “It will be a massive event-management situation.”
She noted logistics include timing the arrival of tonnes of material to avoid double handling and clogging the building.
The transition period also includes a series of dress rehearsals involving 756 people over 40 days acting out 20 scenarios ranging from a bus crash to a blackout to ensure staff are ready for action once they start receiving real patients.
Health Minister Jack Snelling has indicated the timing of the opening will depend on the flu season — if it is late, officials may try to get patients in by midyear, but if the flu season has already hit, the opening will be delayed for safety reasons.
The opening will involve having as few patients as possible in the existing RAH to minimise the number of critically ill people requiring transfer along North Terrace.
Ms Kropf said the nRAH would be the best hospital in Australia.
“It is an amazing building — I think people will be surprised just how good it is,” she said, noting factors from extensive natural light, fresh air and views, as well as single patient rooms, made it more welcoming and private than traditional public hospitals.
If the nRAH passes all tests in the 90-day transition period and commercial acceptance is agreed so the hospital can open, it will trigger payments of more than $1 million a day to the SA Health Partnership consortium under the 35-year contract to finance, design, build, maintain and provide nonclinical services such as cleaning.
