As the premier regional health provider in northeastern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan, Bay Area Medical Center (BAMC) faced a crucial decision to renovate and reorganize their existing 1939 medical center campus or build a new health and wellness campus fully aligned for delivering state-of-the-art care. With growing competition from regional healthcare providers expanding into their market, the decision was made that the community would benefit most by building a new campus. Along with this came the opportunity to merge their clinic services with Aurora Health, which operated a clinic near the new campus.
BAMC hired an Integrated Project Delivery Team consisting of Wold Architects and Engineers, CannonDesign and Boldt Construction to plan, design, and construct the new $135M health and wellness campus consisting of a hospital, medical office building, ambulatory surgery center, cancer center and future community wellness center. The decision to go with an Integrated Project Delivery Team model was based on maximizing the project budget to gain the most value from the building system design and an aggressive, fast-tracked design and construction schedule.
The campus was planned to optimize outpatient services and provide a patient-centered experience while integrating an off-stage platform for providers, caregivers, and support services to deliver care efficiently and effectively to patients and their families. Although planning standards were developed for operational consistency, each department has its own identity tying in the colors and large graphic images inspired by rural Wisconsin's natural elements. This results in color-coded wayfinding and a soothing, calming environment of care. The building was cited to minimize wetland disruption and take advantage of the natural, wooded, and landscape views.
The integrated approach to creating BAMC's new campus went beyond the planning, design, and construction team to include organizational leadership, department directors and their teams, past patients, and the local community to create the new beacon of health and wellness for area residents and the surrounding region. The campus is designed to be a "health and wellness campus of the future" with the flexibility to accommodate future technologies, patient safety, health, and community wellness. The project is a Daily Reporter 2018 Top Project award recipient, and Healthgrades recognized BAMC as a 2020 Outstanding Patient Experience medical facility.