During the miracle of a heart transplant, the surgical team must keep all of the patient's vital organs working properly in order for the operation to succeed. On a less critical but similar scale, facility engineers at Houston's St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute were faced with keeping their 949-bed health care facility running smoothly during one phase of constructing a cardiovascular research and surgery center last year.
The facility engineers knew they could not afford even a temporary interruption to the hospital's daily routine, which encompasses 27,000 patients in the acute-care facility each year.