Dayton VA Medical Center Infrastructure Upgrade

HEAPY designed an all-new Outside Plant Fiber (OSP) system to modernize the Dayton VA Medical Center and support a new Cerner EHRM platform backbone.

This comprehensive upgrade project touched almost every building on the historic campus and crossed most of the roadways. Both A and B side fiber were designed and are currently being installed in 28 buildings using a combination of existing and new concrete-encased encased ductbanks.

The project began by identifying patient care buildings and tracing existing pathways underground with a utility locate service. Manhole lids were then opened by an electrician (retained by the design team) and a 360-degree camera was inserted to document each conduit position and fill, providing deep insight into existing conditions and informing the design team on the necessity of new pathways. New pathways into technology rooms were then carefully mapped out and designed in phases to avoid major interruption to patient care.

The underground utility location and civil engineering design were retained by HEAPY to closely coordinate ductbank profiling. All new critical pathways were shown in elevation view to understand where they needed to rise and fall to avoid existing utilities that could not be moved. This extra effort will help to avoid unnecessary change orders.

This project provided a very deep understanding of the entire site’s underground distribution and utilized our extensive previous site upgrade projects and concurrent project knowledge to help ensure success.