Page 21 - HealthcareNews Jan_Feb 2021

With gratitude to health care workers.
sweitzerconstruction.com 413.626.1498
Design & Build | Dental | Medical | Education | Cannabis | Commercial
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WWW.HEALTHCARENEWS.COM 21
REAL ESTATE & CONSTRUCTION CONT’D
care sector were put on the shelf because of the way the pandemic impacted the client in question financially. Meanwhile, and es- pecially in the beginning, it brought about some new work, as Pelletier explained.
“When COVID first hit, the hospi-
tals were scrambling to get prepared for potential overflow — spikes and surges
— and they wanted us to help them with that, whether it was installing plexiglass shields or building out existing spaces in their facilities to house incoming patients,” he explained. “We had to work around the clock, and it was a little nerve-wracking at first because no one was quite sure what COVID was and how dangerous it was — and they were asking us to send our guys out there not knowing exactly what they were getting into, and the crews had mixed feelings.”
Again, opportunities and challenges.
The challenges came in waves and in dif- ferent forms, from meeting the many new regulations and protocols regarding when and how work can be done to handling new and different employee needs — from more sick time, if needed, to PPE, to working in settings that were often the front lines of the COVID crisis.
The opportunities have come in various forms as well, and sometimes unexpect- edly. That was certainly with the case with Adaptas Solutions.
“They’ve kept us quite busy through all this because they’ve been ramping up and needed construction facilities to accom- modate the work they were doing,” said Pat Sweitzer, adding that the company has some projects ongoing there.
Meanwhile, the airplane the company doesn’t have yet would also be going to several other projects across the region,
the sum of which adds up to what Pat de- scribed as a fairly typical year, volume-wise.
What isn’t as typical is the nature of the work being undertaken, said Craig, noting that COVID has changed the way facilities are designed and operated, with additional emphasis on HVAC and, more specifically, air movement and air quality.
“Dental offices are ground zero — these are individuals working in a patient’s mouth, which is the means for transmitting COVID,” he explained. “These doctors and their hygienists are at ground zero as far as risk is concerned, so we’ve paying a lot of attention to our design/build criteria.
“And the lion’s share of that goes back to HVAC, so we’ve redesigned our standard operatory,” he went on, adding that, with these redesigns, instead of air being drawn up from the patient’s mouth past the doc- tor, it is drawn down to the floor, into the ductwork and away from the doctor’s face.
The company is also installing UVC systems, which kill COVID; additional air changers; larger, tighter air filters; and, in-
creasingly, washers and dryers so staff can wash their clothes during the day.
“We’ve really been refining how we lay these design/build projects out,” Pat said, noting that the modern dental office now resembles a hospital operating room in many respects.
Looking ahead, those we spoke with said COVID will likely continue to impact the healthcare construction scene, even if the pandemic eases, as most project that it will.
Please see Construction, page 37
Among the many healthcare sector projects undertaken
by Associated Builders in recent months was the construction of this Berkshire Facial Surgery facility in East Longmeadow.