Featured photo courtesy of Pulse Design Group.
Pulse Design Group moves into Plaza high rise
Pulse Design Group has moved into their new office space on the tenth floor of the 46 Penn Centre building.
Custom-designed by their own team, Pulse’s new, 10,000-SF headquarters feature unobstructed views of the Country Club Plaza, an open floor plan and plenty of space to safely collaborate and accommodate anticipated staff growth.
The finished product is a welcoming environment that fosters collaboration, innovation and creativity - the perfect stage for a team of healthcare forward-thinking architects, interior designers, medical equipment planners and virtual reality developers.
“The move to the Country Club Plaza provides a larger footprint for firm growth, adds increased visibility, creates a central locale for employees, clients and industry partners, and offers additional amenities for associates,” said Rick Embers, managing partner for Pulse.
The open kitchen and dining spaces provide an area for the entire firm to meet and further encourage employee camaraderie. Multiple meeting spaces, varying in size, provide areas throughout the office for employees to work individually or in small groups.
“The new space is also great for entertainment. The central location and open-floor concept caters to hosting industry events,” said Lindsay Hampton, Pulse principal.
Pulse is optimistic that the move across the state line - from Lenexa, Kan. to Kansas City, Mo. - will catapult the firm’s goals; which include recruiting and developing talent, increasing brand awareness, identifying new business to diversify the firms portfolio, expanding the firms geographic reach and adding areas of focus within healthcare design.
“Employee morale is at an all-time high. Everyone is so proud of our new space,” said Pulse president, Dennis Burns.
It was important for the leadership to have all hands on deck while creating their new office, which even served as a learning tool for younger staff who were included in design charrettes, an integral part of the creative process.
“Many Pulse employees were involved in the creation of our new space and it is was amazing to see the employee excitement while creating their new home. Our new office space is collaborative, open, modern and caters to innovative design,” said Basil Sherman, Pulse principal.
Pulse leadership is also dedicated to employee professional development, encourages community involvement networking with industry professionals and assists and advises in employee growth.
“Whether that requires advising intern architects on licensure, helping staff achieve accreditations, suggesting outlets to obtain continuing education credits or mentoring a summer intern, Pulse Design Group leadership capitalize every opportunity to assist employee professional development,” said Mary Moore, Pulse associate principal.
Providing cutting-edge, solution-driven design solutions are at the core of the firm as exemplified in one of their recent projects at Lawrence Memorial Hospital (LMH) West Campus.
Representing the largest single campus expansion in it’s history, the LMH Health West ambulatory facility is a new, 243,000-SF medical office building designed to guide the organization for the next 20 years. Pulse Design Group provided full architectural and interior design services in addition to complete scope of services for medical equipment planning. This design-build project featured a constant collaboration between architect, contractor and owner that resulted in a cutting-edge facility to serve Douglas County.
Pulse Design Group was originally founded in 1980 as Wilson Johnson Associates. In 1997, Rick Embers joined and the firm became known as Wilson Johnson Embers (WJE). In 2011, WJE rebranded to Pulse Design Group, zoning in on their healthcare industry focus. Today, Pulse Design Group is celebrating over 40 years in business.
“Many of the firm’s employees have been with Pulse Design Group 10+ years, a true testament to positive employee satisfaction,” said Michael Andracsek, Pulse principal.
From a COVID-19 standpoint, Pulse is maintaining a safe and operational office space with safely-distanced workstations, staff mask requirements and room occupancy limits.
To learn more about Pulse Design Group, please visit their website at www.pulsedesigngroup.com.
Design group keeps the Pulse on positivity during uncertain times
Pulse Design Group employees occasionally work from home, so the transition was somewhat seamless from a technology standpoint.
“The hard part is the human connection disruption, and we are only one week into the stay at home ordinance. Our team relies so heavily on one another for collaboration and social interaction. The Pulse family is just that – a family,” said Rick Embers, Pulse Design Group managing partner.
“Design is a collaborative process, and our open office environment supports and fosters that need. This pandemic changed the normal business landscape, so we changed with it,” said Embers.
“Communication and employee engagement are so important, especially in these uncertain times, so we quickly implemented various platforms for employees to stay in touch and connect, and the outcome has been awesome,” said Mary Moore, associate principal.
“Weekly all-company ‘Pulse Peeps’ meetings are occurring through Microsoft Teams, employees are sharing pictures of their home offices, communicating through group chats and having virtual happy hours,” said Moore.
Pulse leadership is sharing additional resources including remote workouts, free financial consulting services, and work from home tips and tricks to keep everyone engaged.
“Staying upbeat and positive is extremely critical” said Embers, while wearing a frizzy wig and colored sunglasses during an internal video conference call.
“Healthcare design is our sole focus and the industry is always evolving. We are used to adapting quickly, just not in this manner, but we are making the best of it.
Our workload remains steady, projects are on schedule, and new work has resulted as our clients respond to this pandemic.
We recently helped The University of Kansas Health System convert an ambulance garage and modify the existing specialty chemistry lab at Bell Hospital into a COVID-19 testing facility. We are doing our part to help the cause,” said Embers.
“This is an interesting and scary time, but there are so many silver linings. Hospitals are responding quickly to treat patients, labs are preparing test kits and vaccinations, community partners are coming together to offer support, people are volunteering, companies are offering goods and services at reduced rates, and people are smiling and genuinely happy to see one another (from a safe distance of course).
Hardship makes you see the world through a different lens. The smallest kind gestures mean so much. You really appreciate the importance of leadership, friendship, camaraderie, family, coworkers and develop a strong sense of community” said Dennis Burns, president of Pulse Design Group.
"Pulse Design Group is proud to support our healthcare clients and community as we navigate this new norm. Thank you to all doctors, nurses, and staff for your continued efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic," Moore said.
Healthcare Panelists: Disruptors include tech, politics and consumer-centric market
Several disruptive trends could provide headwinds to the typically stable healthcare development market over the next two years, including insurance industry uncertainty, shifting political power, ongoing consumer demand for mobile connectivity, and a move to patient-centric drivers in service delivery.
Panelists offered insight into those trends and more at MetroWire Media’s 2018 Healthcare Summit on June 26 at Blue Hills Country Club. Moderated by Dan Lacy, McCownGordon Construction vice president of operations, here’s a snapshot of comments:
“The landscape for healthcare in general is the most dynamic it has ever been in KC. If you look from Holmes Road along I-435 to Metcalf Avenue, you’ve had 450,000 square feet of new construction occur. So that corridor and that visibility takes on a rank-and-file in commercial real estate that we have never seen before-- to the delight of investors, to the delight of institutional owners and to the delight of real estate developers.” -Suzanne Dimmel, Senior Vice President, Cushman & Wakefield
“Getting patient care close to home is obviously a big factor, and you also have the search for getting market share, so bringing patients back to the 'mothership' hospitals-- whether it’s tertiary care or regional hospitals-- you see providers really trying to gather that market share.” -Mitch Hoefer, Founding Principal, Hoefer Wysocki
“We are building critical care clinics that are non-traditional in a sense because they are owned by the insurance companies themselves. They are eliminating the middle man to keep costs down, and we are seeing this all over the country.” -Kevin Rogers, CEO, United Excel
“I think you will see growth in outpatient recovery and sending people home with medical equipment that is connected back to the ‘mothership,’ so patients don’t have to recover for the entire time in the hospital. That could actually reduce the numbers of beds.” -Rick Embers, Principal, Pulse Design Group
“We are looking at flexibility in how we design wireless networks because everyone wants to get on the network with their iPad or phone while sitting there and waiting, but that has to be separate and secured different than the patient network. There’s a huge push there as well as a push to get equipment connected from wireless spaces.” -Jeremy Bechtold, Vice President- Facilities, Construction & Real Estate, Saint Luke’s Health System
“When you’re talking about qualifications and procurement from a design-build standpoint, the process gets a lot more streamlined. The goal of design-build is that we’re all looking for better outcomes, so the goal is to provide that in collaborative manner with teams so they can get engaged with the users.” -Matt Miller, Project Executive, Turner Construction
“Tight construction timelines and speed-to-market pressure means contractors need to custom order product with plenty of lead time… as far as disrupters (to the industry), I think it’s going to be the consumer experience of health care, the demand for convenience and the demand for value.” -Meghan Dudek, Principal, Benson Method
Teamwork and expertise prove good medicine for SMMC project timeline
Shawnee Mission Medical Center has opened the city’s largest hybrid operating room, a fast-tracked project that converted an outdated clinical area into a 3,550-square foot surgical space equipped with the latest advanced imaging equipment and technology.
Built by general contractor United Excel and designed by health care architecture firm Pulse Design Group, the new multidisciplinary operating room allows health care professionals from different specialties to treat patients undergoing minimally-invasive heart and vascular surgeries in the same location. Procedures will include Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacements (TAVR), electrophysiology, vascular procedures and cardiac catheterization.
Most of the construction took place after normal business hours to meet an expedited project timeline and to minimize disruptions to patients and ongoing operations. It was a challenge that United Excel was prepared to meet.
“It’s so different from building a big box store or standalone construction because there are birthing mothers and even NICU patients right next to us.” said United Excel Project Manager Lucy Campbell. “Adjacent areas remained active during hospital hours and during off hours. If someone was admitted for an emergency surgery, we had to stop what we were doing but still maintain the construction schedule.”
United Excel built a shell around the construction space to limit harmful fumes, dust, vibration and noise. Once the hybrid OR was completed and equipment installed within the shell, crews performed a thorough terminal cleaning to ensure the space was 100 percent sterile.
“We built a whole room around the space in which we were going to be working, so you are building twice, basically,” said United Excel President Dennis Burns. “Those in health care construction understand how important infection control is. If you don’t do health care construction, then you may not be aware of how important that piece is.”
Architectural details included a flexible floor plan that was developed and vetted by nurses and physicians with the aid of virtual reality, custom solid surface casework provided by Shield, and an elevated control desk for optimal patient viewing. The advanced room design allows for a patient to transition from an interventional catheter-based procedure to a surgical procedure without being transported to another setting.
“Our firm has designed hybrid operating rooms for numerous clients, but the new hybrid operating room at Shawnee Mission Medical Center is by far the most spacious and technologically advanced. It sets the highest standards for future hybrid operating rooms,” said Pulse Design Group Principal Rick Embers.
Greg Highbarger, SMH design and construction manager, agreed that the complexities of the hybrid operating room project-- including a September-to-January timeline-- provided challenges.
“...the synergy of our design and construction partners defused any concerns that our project would not be completed on time and under budget,” Highbarger said in a release. “The success of our new state-of-the-art hybrid operating room is a testament to having the right expertise at each phase of the project.”
The project team included: Professional Engineering Consultants (PEC), P1 Group, Capital Electric, Allied Construction Services, Shield Casework, and Jayhawk Fire Sprinkler Co. Medical equipment was provided by Steris, Phillips, Biosense Webster, GE, Drager, Siemens, & Sorin.
United Excel built an actual infection control barrier during construction of Shawnee Mission Medical Center's Hybrid OR. The wall blends visually into the adjacent hallway.