By Dan Hounsell

The COVID-19 pandemic upended or delayed a host of projects and processes in healthcare facilities, but for some organizations, critical construction projects and upgrades needed to continue. So the challenge for healthcare facilities managers became how to do so safely.

The challenge is even tougher when the jobsite is a functioning emergency department during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Construction Dive. Contractors were in the middle of an expansion and renovation of Boston’s Brigham and Women's Hospital emergency department as the pandemic hit in early 2020. They had to determine how to keep working safely to keep the improvements on track.

Phase 1 consisted of the expansion into 25,000 square feet of space adjacent to the emergency department and 19,000 square feet of infrastructure upgrades throughout the facility. To complete Phase 1, the team had to work adjacent to the active emergency department and above the existing radiology department. Workers drilled 170 cores through the floor, making sure to not disrupt hospital operations going 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That meant working around the schedules of hospital staff, including nights, weekends and holidays.