A major issue in hospitals today is secondary infections that result in approximately 99,000 deaths per year. One potential cause is cross-contamination from hospital remodels. Health care facility managers have rigorous guidelines controlling containments during demolition and improvements because hospitals are truly an environment of controlled hazards.
Construction activities in occupied hospitals, particularly adjacent to surgical suites, ICUs and CICUs, need to support air flow, dust control and infection control and this is paramount to the success of the project.
The building trade unions have stepped up the plate and addressed those needs in their apprenticeship training programs, partnering with hospital facility managers and contractors to train their members to provide the safest environment for patients while providing quality construction.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters developed a program specifically to meet the needs and the Carpenters International Training Fund (CITF) in consultation with medical industry experts in pathogen containment during occupied facility construction work, assembled vital, up-to-date, technical material for initial training, and established protocols for consistent curriculum review and updates as new technologies emerge. CITF also researched which best practices would deliver the trained professionals that a health care job site requires.
The Carpenters Union Best Practices in Health Care Construction in Occupied Facilities program utilizes a two-tiered approach to ensure high quality training standards. In the first Tier, certified Master Instructors put qualified trainers through a rigorous “Train-the-Trainer” curriculum. The 40-hour program includes the use of simulated health care facility conditions. Only those who successfully complete this course are certified to teach at the regional training centers. Refresher and re-certification courses are mandatory. In Tier 2, the certified instructors train the UBC members in the proper use of the Best Practices protocols.
The New England Carpenters’ Apprenticeship and Training Fund offers the Best Practices in Health Care Construction in Occupied Facilities Course – which delivers comprehensive skill-sets to contain pathogens, protect patients and perform work without disrupting operations. Lyle Hamm, Director of Training, Boston said, “Hospitals reached out to the New England Regional Council of Carpenters to come up with a program that would ensure that their needs would be met during construction and we developed a program that addresses their needs providing patients with the safest most risk free environment.”
The Carpenters Union program was developed three years ago and it is very elaborateon how to control the construction environment with minimal disturbance to patient and doctors. They assemble a “clean room” in class which is a controlled environment specifically for containing the outside environment from getting inside. . Hamm said, “They learn how to do construction in a sterile environment. They learn the importance of tracking dust material because a whole hospital wing can be shut down if there is contamination from dust material. “
The building trade unions invest over $28 million annually in apprenticeship training programs. Providing training in health care construction is part of the curriculum for most of these programs.
Many hospitals in Massachusetts have benefited from the rigourous training men and women in the building trade unions receive in their apprenticeship and journey worker upgrade training programs.
David E. Storto, President, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital at at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospitals’s Topping -Off Ceremony said, “The project is on–time and on-budget and when it is completed it will be a tremendous institution.”
Dennis O’Connor, Project Superintendent, Walsh Brothers says , “The beauty of working with the building trades is that you know you will get qualified trained workers, even as the construction industry fluctuates, it is easier to get quality people on the job because of the training the building trade unions provide.”
Healthcare facility mangers, end users, and contractors can be assured that the men and women in the building trade unions share their same goal of keeping patients safe while completing construction projects with the highest quality, on-time and on-budget.