Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton Expansion

Big things can come in small packages. This was an inspiring principle when it came to Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) Braselton’s vision to expand into a healthcare “village” for the greater Braselton community, while also serving as an extension of NGMC’s main Gainesville campus. Challenging the team to think beyond the typical scale of a community hospital, NGMC Braselton sought to evolve its facility into a campus whose offerings and patient experience would rival that of larger hospitals.  

The now expanded three-story, 100-bed, 218,000 SF hospital provides comprehensive offerings including imaging, diagnostics, emergency, orthopedics, heart and vascular, surgical, NICU, neurosciences, and cancer treatment services. Working in concert with the hospital, an adjacent five-story, 125,000 SF medical office building on the 119-acre greenfield site also features more than 20 specialty physician offices, imaging suites, a resource center, outpatient procedure rooms, retail pharmacy, cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, cath labs, endoscopy suite, outpatient lab, therapy services, and urgent care center. 

Through an integrated project delivery model, our team partnered closely with all stakeholders to achieve the below key objectives: 

• Creating a comprehensive patient-centered experience 
• Applying evidence-based design to achieve innovative clinical results 
• Fostering collaborative care 
• Promoting a wellness-focused built environment through sustainability 

An Evidence-Based Approach 

Drawing on our team’s experiences as former clinicians, interior designers, smart building consultants, and seasoned medical equipment planners, we both empathized with and anticipated what physicians, staff, and patients would need and expect from their built environment. As technology design and medical equipment consultants, we first thought through the clinical processes the facility would need to support and then how those processes could be optimized. Providing a full range of communications systems design, healthcare innovation, and equipment planning services, our team used this research/evidence-backed approach to inform the sourcing and designing of systems, processes, and equipment. 

To support NGMC’s collaborative care model, we paid close attention to the compatibility of the Braselton campus’ equipment and technology with that of other NGMC campuses. Additionally, advanced video technology was incorporated to support conferencing between the NGMC campuses. Other technology that was utilized included cable TV distribution, medical grade wireless utility, nurse call technology, overhead paging, physiological monitoring cabling, security systems, structured cabling, synchronized clocks, and televisions. Nurse stations and nurse servers were also decentralized to reduce distance to supplies, allowing staff to monitor patients more effectively and enhance a patient-focused experience.  

Tested and Ready for an Emergency 

Partnering with health systems of all sizes for over 55 years, we know that medical centers like NGMC Braselton must be prepared for any emergency—patients depend on it. 

Our electrical commissioning team was dedicated to not only providing NGMC Braselton with a robust emergency power plan but also ensuring it was thoroughly tested and proven. Through extensive interviews with facility operations and medical staff, we gained a deep understanding of their comprehensive and logistical needs. Guided by this insight, our team meticulously crafted and refined functional procedures to rigorously test the reliability of a newly added emergency power source—while ensuring the test did not disrupt the hospital’s ongoing operations. 

Coordinating with a dozen team members across the campus via two-way radios, our team led the emergency system through extensive testing. The team’s exhaustive efforts confirmed the reliability and seamless integration of the new emergency power source and equipment within the existing system. Ultimately, NGMC Braselton was equipped with peace of mind and detailed plans to effectively utilize the equipment in an emergency. 

Growing the Greater Good 

Completed two months ahead of schedule, Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton embodies NGMC’s commitment to “Growing the Greater Good.” Focusing on not only growing its brick-and-mortar presence but also enhancing NGMC’s capacity to serve the community. With the enhanced Braselton campus, NGMC is even better equipped to provide exceptional care to more than 580,000 patients annually across the Northeast Georgia region.