Alberta Health Services enlists Falkbuilt + Sprung's solution for pandemic

Falkbuilt is pleased to be working with our long-time friends at Sprung Structures to help increase patient capacity at Calgary’s Peter Lougheed Centre (PLC).

Sprung is erecting an 8,000 sq ft structure in the parking lot next to PLC in northeast Calgary. Once the structure is complete, a team of Falkbuilt installers will build 67 Falkcare headwalls in two days. By the end of April, the entire energy efficient facility will be fully equipped and ready to house Calgary-area patients in the short term—and re-used elsewhere across AHS in the long-term.

“This is all completely repurposable,” says Mogens Smed, CEO and co-founder of Falkbuilt. “Since this pandemic hit, we’ve watched in disbelief as organizations across North America spend hundreds of millions of dollars on healthcare solutions that will all go to the landfill after this is all over. A throwaway solution is a terrible way to manage this.”

The facility going up in the PLC parking lot is far from a temporary or throwaway solution. After the crisis eases, AHS can repurpose both the Sprung structure and the Falkbuilt headwalls. The structure can be put to use anywhere its needed and the headwalls are quickly and easily reconfigured into more permanent patient, ICU or isolation rooms at PLC or any other AHS location across Alberta.

Sprung, a 133-year-old company based in Alberta, had the structure in inventory. Falkbuilt will manufacture and deliver the headwalls within two days. They meet stringent infection protection and control guidelines as well as COVID-19 sterilization protocols. Each headwall is equipped with electrical drops, lighting and switch boxes as well connectors for med gases and vacuum outlets. Falkbuilt’s process, Digital Component Construction, is dramatically speeding up how quickly the facility can be up and running.

“Clients all over North America are talking to us about providing this combined solution,” says Smed. “Alberta Health Services should be recognized for thinking past the immediate crisis to a longer-term investment they can reconfigure and reuse for decades. It’s true we are dealing with a pandemic right now, but that doesn’t mean you have to panic in your response.”