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Mercy Medical Center Electrical Engineering

HGA worked closely with the hospital facilities staff and Wisconsin Public Service Corporation to develop a reliable cost effective design for the power distribution system. The solution consists of two secondary 4000 amp, 480-volt services. A tiebreaker allows one service to feed the entire load if there is a problem with the other service. HGA and WPS established a location on site where the utility can switch between two separate primary feeds. This will provide added reliability to the hospital. At this time there is only one primary feed installed, however the second feed can be added in the future if the hospital experiences power reliability problems.
Emergency Systems A 1500 kW emergency generator was designed for this building. The generator feeds the various automatic transfer switches. These switches feed emergency lighting, critical loads, elevators, a fire pump and mechanical equipment. HGA decided to place all of the air handling systems on the emergency generator. This approach was determined to be more cost effective than trying to route separate fans and ductwork for code required areas and then connecting only those areas to the generator.
Lighting Systems Light fixtures were selected both inside and outside of the building to accent the architecture of the building and also to provide a more pleasant environment for the patients. Some examples of this are the subtle lighting of the outdoor courtyard, the custom wall sconces in the galleria space, the accenting of artwork and statues, building mounted lighting around the bed tower, and even the illuminated fountain in the pond. Controls were provided to give the nurses and patients maximum flexibility.
Nurse Call System HGA worked closely with the hospital staff in developing the design of all the nurse call systems. Systems provide the patients the ability to control lights and televisions from either the pillow speaker or from a side-comm bed. The system also interfaces with the Lucent Technologies internal phone system. This phone system operates off of antennae in the building and nurse calls go directly to a nurse's hand held phone.