University of Michigan seeks $3.3M upgrade for Burn Center

UMHS is seeking approval for the project from the University of Michigan Board of Regents at its monthly meeting on Thursday.

"The delivery of medicine has changed" since the unit was first built in 1986, Ora Pescovitz, U-M's Vice President for Medical Affairs, and Timothy Slottow, U-M's Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, said in a memo addressed to the regents.

The existing unit is too small and cramped to best accommodate the some 1,200 patients suffering from multiple traumatic injuries or burns that visit the center each year, officials say.

"The physical constraints of the unit reduce staff efficiency and effectiveness," Peskovitz and Slottow wrote in the memo.

UMHS said the funds for the project, to be completed by the fall of 2012, will come from University Hospital and Health Center resources. It plans to phase construction area by area in an effort to reduce disruption to patients.

About 6,600 square feet of the facility will be improved. That area will undergo architectural, mechanical, and electrical upgrades and receive new finishings and lighting. Patient rooms will also be renovated to increase patient comfort and "create a more healing environment for patients and families."

New physical therapy and occupational therapy room will be created, as will a new faculty on-call room.

The Ferndale firm Project and Design Management LLC has been tapped to design the project.

The upgrade comes after the recent opening of the $754 million C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital and the $17.7 million expansion of the University Hospital emergency room.

Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at kelliewoodhouse@annarbor.com or 734-623-4602 and follow her on twitter.