The Karolinska Hospital and Institute in Stockholm is a globally renowned health care institution. In 2010, construction for the New Karolinska Solna (NKS) Hospital started. With an overall investment of $3.0 billion and a contract to extend until 2040 it is considered to be the world’s largest hospital public private partnership. When completed the hospital will have over 12,000 rooms, 35 operating theatres and 17 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units.
To complicate matters construction has to take place without disrupting the normal operations of the old Karolinska University Hospital and research institute. Moreover, the project is under close scrutiny from the media and general public due to the significant public investment.
29 automated guided vehicles will autonomously carry out about 1,600 transports per day
Aiming to set new standards in patient care, integration of healthcare and research, adaptability to future needs and sustainability, the NKS project involves also many innovations in the construction process and in O&M. The key innovation is the development and usage of an advanced Building Information Model (BIM) that will be used across the entire lifecycle. Once completed the model’s object list will have about one million items and can be accessed from anywhere by construction workers, project managers or contractors. Without “Digital snagging”, i.e., identifying potential issues and communicating them via a virtual punchlist before handover, the smooth handover of the building would simply not have been possible. But, the best is yet to come – the maximum potential of the BIM model will be realized during O&M, making that phase as efficient as possible thanks to predictive maintenance, quicker repairs and optimized facility management including 29 automated guided vehicles which will autonomously conduct logistics within the hospital and between the different buildings and which use the BIM model as an address book. What’s more, the hospital construction sets new standards in terms of sustainability (climate neutral, LEED Gold) and also took advantage of pre-fabrication of entire rooms to facilitate logistics and speed up construction.
The project contains valuable lessons on how innovation were implemented during the long duration of the project (2010-2017) and knowledge efficiently transferred between project phases as well as how construction contractor and facility manager have effectively worked together within the long-term PPP contract. Download the full case study on the right to read the full story.