University of Chicago Medical Center

The University requested master planning services to help define a practical and flexible framework to guide future capital investments on the Hyde Park campus for the next 5-10 years for its clinical lab.

HERA led a series of five workshops, with the University goals of improving lab operations, minimizing disruption in the developing overall master plan, accommodating new initiatives and growth, creating connectivity for users, creating collaboration for the academic mission and improving quality of life for recruitment and retention.

The clinical lab includes a core lab, microbiology-immunology, anatomic pathology, genetics & molecular diagnostics and blood bank/transfusion. Due to programmatic growth, UCMC anticipates a volume growth of 30%-40% over the next five years.

Through an interactive process with end users, HERA developed three options to improve the fragmentation of the clinical laboratories on campus:

» Consolidation and adjacency improvements using on-campus existing facilities.

» Consolidation of some services at a new on-campus center while maintaining some services at existing on-campus facilities.

» Develop a new off-campus center for consolidation of most clinical lab functions.

The team also provided benchmarking data to determine departmental gross square footages by department and created an ideal lab flow diagram to identify adjacencies and locations necessary for an operationally efficient lab.