The $577 million Victorian Heart Hospital (VHH) is Australia’s first state-of-the-art, specialist cardiac hospital, providing innovative, holistic, patient-centred care in heart disease and world-leading research and education.
Constructed on the Monash University Clayton campus, the purpose-built centre for education and research facility is a collaboration between the Victorian Health Building Authority (VHBA), Monash Health and Monash University. Monash Health will operate the hospital. Major construction is now complete, with the new hospital expected to welcome its first patients in early 2023.
The hospital includes 144 inpatient beds, 16 ICU beds, three operating theatres, ten cardiac catheterisation labs, including two hybrid labs, one procedure room, 26 ED points of care, 46 same-day chairs, as well as pathology, pharmacy, cardiac imaging, cardiac emergency department, and ambulatory care services and helipad. The building is also future-proofed to enable the construction of an additional 32-bed IPU on the northern section of the building. The facility includes a three-level basement carpark, an integrated loading dock, and back of house area.
Located within the facility is the Monash Victorian Heart Institute which will be the destination for collaborative cardiovascular research in medical engineering and biomedical imaging, regenerative medicine and cell-based therapies, biomedical discovery and clinical informatics. The institutes educational spaces are a mix of informal and group workspaces and high and low simulation technology labs, and includes a 118 space lecture theatre. The research facilities include a desk-based research zone including multifunctional laboratories, tissue culture, biobanking, microscopy and engineering specialist support rooms, blood, analytics, and systems laboratories, a cell therapies room, as well as a pre-clinical (small models) laboratory.
With a depth of experience in delivering critical health projects, AECOM was well placed to provide consultancy services and has been involved since early inception, preparing the master plan and feasibility study through to the business case. This required assessing the two major stakeholders’ requirements and options for delivering a stand-alone facility versus integrating with the university’s site engineering infrastructure. AECOM undertook all engineering services, including site infrastructure services, mechanical, electrical, fire services, hydraulics, ICT and security for clinical, research and education spaces. The masterplan and feasibility addressed the engineering issues of combining a hospital-based clinical / research organisation with a teaching and research university.
In 2018, VHBA engaged AECOM to deliver an integrated design offering, including building services design, civil and structural design, cost management, speciality engineering, and ESD services.
