Page 44 - BusinessWest March 3, 2021

The opportunities have come in various forms as well, and sometimes unexpectedly. That was certainly with the case with Adaptas Solutions.
“They’ve kept us quite busy through all this because they’ve been ramping up and needed construction facilities to accommodate the work they were doing,” said Pat Sweitzer, adding that the company has some projects ongoing there.
Meanwhile, the airplane the company doesn’t have yet would also be going to several other projects across the region, the sum of which adds up to what Pat described as a fairly typical year, volume-wise.
What isn’t as typical is the nature of the work
“These doctors and their hygienists are at ground zero as far as risk is concerned, so we’ve paying a lot of attention to our design/build criteria.”
being undertaken, said Craig, noting that COVID has changed the way facilities are designed and operated, with additional emphasis on HVAC and, more specifically, air movement and air quality.
“Dental offices are ground zero — these are individuals working in a patient’s mouth, which is the means for transmitting COVID,” he explained. “These doctors and their hygienists are at ground zero as far as risk is concerned, so we’ve paying a lot of attention to our design/build criteria.
“And the lion’s share of that goes back to HVAC, so we’ve redesigned our standard operatory,” he went on, adding that, with these redesigns, instead of air being drawn up from the patient’s mouth past the doctor,
it is drawn down to the floor, into the ductwork and away from the doc- tor’s face.
The company is also installing UVC systems, which kill COVID; addi- tional air changers; larger, tighter air filters; and, increasingly, washers and dryers so staff can wash their clothes during the day.
“We’ve really been refining how we lay these design/build projects out,” Pat said, noting that the modern dental office now resembles a hospital operating room in many respects.
Ryan Pelletier stands in the atrium at Mercy Medical Center, one of the many projects within the healthcare sector undertaken by the company in recent months.
Looking ahead, those we spoke with said COVID will likely continue to impact the health- care construction scene, even if the pandemic eases, as most project that it will.
Indeed, there is general uncertainty about when or even if the rising prices on materials will start to ease, and this uncertainty could play a
role in whether some projects move forward or not.
Bradbury told BusinessWest there is inclination among some in healthcare (and in other sectors, obviously) to try to wait these increases out with the hope that prices will start coming down.
“But there is no guarantee that prices will come down,” he said. “One thing I always tell people is that, while they think they can wait out
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BUSINESS OF AGING
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