THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP FOR PLAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR CANADA'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM! It's not every day you get to build the future. Then again, while delivering the electrical and technology scopes of work at the new Calgary Cancer Center, #TeamPlanGroup and Canem Systems had the opportunity to spend five years on-site doing just that. That said, we’ve decided to shine this month's Project Spotlight on Canada's largest hospital of its kind. Let's take a deeper look at the internationally recognized—state-of-the-art—facility that's gearing up to set a new standard of care and revitalize the future of cancer treatment as we know it: THE CALGARY CANCER CENTRE.
In addition to being one of the most energy-efficient hospitals in North America, the incredibly resilient building was designed to provide the best possible environment to further support positive outcomes for patients and their families. The dual redundancy mechanical system will provide clean air replenishment up to eight times per hour while also ensuring optimal water purification through reverse osmosis. Evidently, this project was a massive undertaking for all those involved. As the electrical and technology sub-contractors, in joint venture with our partners at Canem Systems, we had an important role to play in bringing it to life.
WORKING TOGETHER TO GET THE JOB DONE
The coordination effort was an amazing, yet challenging, undertaking for the team. The modelling performed by the team allowed us to clearly communicate plans between other trades, furniture and equipment vendors, and PCL. Dan Matthews, Project Manager – Plan Group
At the start of the project, PCL Construction, Modern Niagara, and the Canem/Plan Group Joint Venture collaborated on creating an award-winning as-built Building Information Model (BIM) complete with Asset Information Management (AIM) as a resource to support post-construction facility management workflows. Through the use of Revit, our JV team had the pleasure of collaborating on this model to help support the planning and integration of various electrical, building automation, fire alarm, security, communication, and technology systems.
SMART-READY, SMART-CAPABLE, SMART PATIENT CARE
Plan Group’s Technology Team and Canem systems went to great lengths to ensure that the standard of care at The Calgary Cancer Centre rivals that of the world’s most technologically advanced SMART Hospitals. Together, we worked on delivering a sophisticated communications pathway that would help distribute fibre optic network connection throughout every inch of the building. The secure network infrastructure we delivered was designed to support instantaneous data processing, making it possible for all integrated systems to communicate via the facility-wide converged network. This approach ensures there are no barriers and all data is available on the same network (OT and IT).
Our Systems Integration Team was tasked with getting some of the Calgary Cancer Centre’s most notable SMART Systems up and running. They worked tirelessly to support the seamless integration of the facility’s SMART Systems network and help streamline communications between patients, nurse practitioners, and staff on-call.
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
The Plan Group and Canem team executed over 1.4M person-hours on the Calgary Cancer Centre Project. Under normal circumstances, a project of this size presents a unique set of challenges for the hard-working Women and Men in the field. However, the extortionary circumstances of working through the COVID-19 Pandemic presented additional challenges in an unprecedented way. The project team came together in the face of the Pandemic, and we were able to continue our delivery of the project with reduced downtime. “Starting from the pursuit of this Joint Venture project –and up until its recent completion– for myself and the team at Canem, it has been a wonderful journey. We made it our goal to always put the project first. We worked together with Plan Group as if we were one company, which made for an enjoyable and successful experience. Along the way, we had the chance to learn about project execution from a different perspective—I think our new insights and ideas will help us both make ourselves even more successful in the future.” Mark Volf, Construction Manager – Canem Systems
To get the job done efficiently, we needed to work in unison with our JV partners to bring our business together as one. In doing so, we had the opportunity to learn from each other as we tackled this major P3 project with a +450-person team. Together, we modelled the electric conduits, transformers, cable trays, electrical panels, lighting fixtures, and electrical rooms. We also installed PVC conduit into the floors of the building, did some renovations and upgrades within the existing Foothills Medical Centre, and installed & configured the Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) T3 systems for this project. It wasn’t an easy feat, but it was made possible thanks to the constant support of, and collaboration with, our incredible JV Partners at Canem Systems. As of December 9th, 2022, Alberta Infrastructure has formally announced that the construction of this state-of-the-art facility is officially complete. Now that our time spent supporting the delivery of CCC is a thing of the past, it's up to Alberta Health Services to continue "Building Hope" for countless cancer patients for years to come. That said, we couldn't be more proud to have been a small part of the powerhouse team that helped make that possible. We do it all, we do it well, and we love what we do—that’s the spirit of #TeamPlanGroup!
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