New Specialty Pediatric Medical Center opens in Texas

A grand opening celebration introduced the community to a new 32,516-square-meter sports-focused medical center specializing in orthopedic care to treat conditions such as broken bones or torn knee ligaments, as well as injury prevention for young athletes. Planning and design work on the $157 million Frisco, Texas facility began in 2014, and it recently welcomed its first patients. 

Working with HKS architects on behalf of the client, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, WSP was responsible for the project’s mechanical-electrical-plumbing (MEP) and fire protection engineering; life safety consulting, including atrium modelling; building technology systems design, including structured cabling for telecommunication, security, telecom and the distributed antenna system; and acoustic consulting.

The new facility offers day surgeries as well as physical therapy, and a fracture clinic accepts walk-in patients. As a teaching facility, research will continue to play a large role in the care and treatment of patients, and it features a conference center with a 155-seat lecture hall for training.

“This facility includes many features that make it feel inviting to a child, such as the abundant use of color throughout the facility,” said Douglas Lacy, project manager for WSP. “Of special note is the color-changing façade of the Movement Science Lab, where WSP worked with HKS to bring a creative concept to reality.”

Scottish Rite for Children Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center is the first stand-alone campus that Scottish Rite Hospital has built outside of its Dallas location, which has been its home for 97 years. The new facility gives doctors access to countless resources and allows room for the Center for Excellence in Sports Medicine to grow, where doctors can provide care at every step of a pediatric athlete’s recovery process.

The Movement Science Lab features motion-capture cameras to create images of children performing activities such as running, jumping, throwing and kicking to help medical staff evaluate and diagnose conditions.

“Our state-of-the-art Movement Science Lab sets Scottish Rite for Children apart,” said Henry B. Ellis, M.D., pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Scottish Rite for Children. “The large indoor space and motion-capture cameras help our staff isolate an athlete’s movement and determine individualized care for each athlete.”

Adjacent to the Movement Science Lab is a large indoor and outdoor Sports Therapy area that includes turfed sections and a short running track to replicate real-world conditions for evaluating young athletes.

“The new facility allows the Center for Excellence in Sports Medicine to expand beyond expertise in clinical care,” Ellis said. “We are able to utilize the new physical therapy gym, in conjunction with the motion science lab, to improve recovery, understand injury risk and ultimately develop injury prevention strategy for our youth.”

The building includes an attached central utility plant, as well as shell space for a future in-patient bed unit. “WSP and HKS designed the facility to meet both Texas ambulatory surgery center guidelines and hospital guidelines so that it can easily transition to inpatient care in the future,” Lacy said.

The design and construction team functioned using a Lean integrated project delivery (LIPD) model, using Lean delivery techniques such as “Big Room,” where an on-site co-location space is designated to bring together designers, builders, and facility operators to collaborate.

The project also employed A3 problem-solving and reporting techniques to promote continuous evaluation and improvement during construction; and incorporated the Choosing by Advantages process to make system selections and project decisions.

Several specialty areas within the new medical center required special considerations for its mechanical-electrical-plumbing-technology (MEPT) design.

In addition to standard clinic rooms, the second level of the medical center includes a workshop where prosthetics and orthotics are designed and fabricated. Due to the materials used in these spaces, specific air flow and environmental conditions were required as part of the planning process.

The Movement Science Lab’s motion-capture camera systems and in-floor force plate measurement equipment also required coordination with medical equipment and MEPT services during its design and construction.

“One Lean method the team used was to participate in multiple Gemba walks with Scottish Rite Hospital staff and other IPD (integrated project delivery) team members to view the client’s existing medical campus during design to understand the special requirements of the client,” Lacy said.

Lacy anticipates that the success of the Lean methodology IPD techniques used on this project will serve as a template for similar medical facility projects in the future.

Scottish Rite Hospital consistently ranks in the top 10 for U.S. hospitals specializing in pediatric orthopedics nationally, and Lacy said that adding a second campus for the health system will allow them to provide care for more children. It will also expand their ability to continue as a leader in research and education.

“Scottish Rite for Children has its niche, which focuses on treating children whose growth plates are still open,” said Daniel J. Sucato, M.D., M.S., chief of staff at Scottish Rite Hospital. “This can be very different than treating an adult for the same condition.”

“It is rare to dedicate an entire sports medicine facility to pediatric athletes,” Ellis added. “But with Frisco regarded as one of the best places in the country to raise an athlete, it should also be one of the safest places in the country to raise an athlete.”

While the medical facility is now treating patients, the construction team is finishing the playground and associated playground pavilion buildings, and design work is set to begin on the facility’s therapy pools adjacent to the sports therapy gym.

This was a special project for Lacy, who has worked on dozens of Scottish Rite Hospital projects since joining the firm in 2004.

“Over the years, I have come to understand Scottish Rite Hospital has a special culture that is hard to describe in words,” he said. “The way that they care for the whole child, not just their condition, and the way they demonstrate respect for all the people that enter their facility, from the patients and their families to the center’s staff—and even those of us that are consultants and vendors. Scottish Rite Hospital is quite a special place, and it is super-fulfilling to see this project emerge from a multi-year master plan and validation phase to become the building that opened last month, and know how many lives that this place will touch and improve.”