Building rules strict

The new Intermountain Medical Center, which will be the largest hospital campus in the state, is steadily being constructed in Murray. In West Jordan, the 28-bed expansion at Jordan Valley Hospital is winding up. Alta View Hospital is getting a retooled short stay surgery unit. And Pioneer Valley Hospital's getting a major remodel and addition, as well.

It's happening all over the state: The most recent state Health Facility Plan Review Report by the Bureau of Licensing at the Department of Health lists seven pages of projects under way or wrapping up, from the proposed drawings of Mesa View Manor in Toquerville to phased construction and remodeling of the Uintah Basin Medical Center in Roosevelt. There are nursing homes like the 60-bed Millard County Care Skilled Nursing Facility that just opened in Delta and the addition of an operating room at the Mount Ogden Surgical Center or the remodel of the Willow Creek Building at the Utah Developmental Center in American Fork. And everything in between.

Medical-facility design and construction are more regulated than most construction.

While all construction has to meet basic requirements, like fire safety codes, hospitals and other medical facilities have an added layer of restrictions and rules and mandates. There's even a different strategy in applying fire safety codes to a hospital. In most places, emphasis is on keeping the structure intact long enough to get the occupants out. In a hospital, you likely can't take everyone out. Instead, the design divides the structure to keep everyone alive and contain the fire.

While offices may be built by a developer who hopes to make money by attracting a business to set up shop, hospitals are driven by the users from the get-go, Scott A. Larkin of Architectural Nexus said. "That difference translates to quality, because it's designed to be occupied and lived with, rather than sold to someone else."

Right after World War II, the federal government started loaning funds to communities to help them build hospitals. To get the money, health facilities had to follow Health, Education and Welfare guidelines for both design and construction. In the 1980s, that federal building assistance fund ended and what is now the Department of Health and Human Services decided it wasn't overseeing funding, so it shouldn't regulate construction, either.