Lawrence Memorial Hospital West Campus

Completing the new West Campus in 2020, Lawrence Memorial Hospital (LMH Health) continues to expand on their mission of providing exceptional patient care for all. The almost 250,000 square-foot facility primarily offers outpatient services—including surgery, physical and occupational therapy, women’s health center and more.

Shield, in partnership with local architecture and design firm Pulse Design Group, developed a variety of custom, solid surface solutions for LMH Health’s new facility. Product types ranging from interlocking pass-through cabinets to waterproof hydrotherapy casework were designed with clinical efficiency, patient safety and lifetime value in-mind.

Operating Rooms

A key improvement to LMH Health’s Surgery Center was the installation of solid surface pass-through casework to their operating rooms. Due to the high-volume, rapid turnover nature of LMH Health’s surgery schedule, efficiency and sterilization were top priority in the development of this product.

With these pass-through cabinets, nurses or supply liaisons can stock for the next surgery while the current surgery is still being performed, most importantly, without “breaking the field” or compromising the sterility of the operating room. Shield’s addition of transparent doors allows the supply captain to see storage levels (items like gauze, sutures, etc.) at a glance; while the pass-through nature of the cabinets enables them to restock immediately, streamlining the process vs. having to wait until the surgery is complete.

Besides basic ease of use for the hospital staff, the pass-through casework have a direct impact on the surgery schedule. With a normal lag of 10–20 minutes between surgeries, eliminating stocking the cabinets from the post-op list enables staff to focus on just sterilizing the room, in-turn saving time. By taking back approximately 10 minutes per surgery, four surgeries per day, then LMH Health is able to accommodate one additional surgery per day in each OR.

"People have talked about OR pass-throughs for years, but they haven’t been able to maintain the pressurization and they haven’t had cabinets of a material that helps mitigate risk. The specific workflow and flow of the supplies is the revolutionary component... We would not be able to execute the design effectively without Shield’s solid surface solution."

- Basil Sherman, Pulse Design Group

Specialty Cabinets

As with all Shield products, the custom cabinetry within LMH Health’s new facility is microbial resistant, durable, and easily sterilized to support the health of patients and staff.

Designed specifically for LMH Health, the cabinets within the surgical pathology laboratory (SPL) are a combination of solid surface cabinets with phenolic counter tops installed on top—due to the fact that these counter tops see a lot of wear-and-tear from bulky equipment. The SPL is the primary location for frozen sectioning and analysis services, a space that is notoriously messy—materials are knocked over, spilled, etc.—
making it crucial that the furniture is easy to clean. The nature of Shield’s fully sealed, seamless products prevent potential cross-contamination or compromising of samples.

Shield cabinets were also installed in the hydrotherapy rooms, used primarily for physical, occupational, or post-op therapy. This part of the facility posed considerable issues for standard products; the rooms host an incredibly high humidity content as their primary use involves a 10 x 10-foot pool with a submerged treadmill. The cabinets designed and fabricated by Shield are essentially waterproof, eliminating the concern for mold growth or deterioration within five, 10 or 20 years.

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