Kainuu’s new hospital ”Kainua” shows the way of the future

All health care services, a modern hospital, robust functionality to support patient rehabilitation and adaptable facilities, all under the same roof. Kainua’s other distinguishing features include the versatile use of wood, the colourfulness and brightness of the facilities and the art on display inside the hospital.

The first phase of the construction of Kainuu’s new central hospital, encompassing approximately 2/3 of the very first Integrated Project Delivery (aka. Alliance) hospital project ever delivered in Finland, was completed on 22 January 2020, allowing the hospital to admit its first patients. Sweco has played a major role in the project together with the other alliance partners Skansa, Caverion and the Kainuu Social and Health Care Joint Authority.

The Alliance has been jointly responsible for the design and implementation of the new construction and renovation of the Kainuu Central Hospital project. For Sweco, the project has encompassed principal and architectural design, building services and structural design, the design of technical logistics systems and functional design based on the user-orientation of the hospital.

A collaboratively created smart hospital

The designing of the hospital began in March 2015 with an emphasis on the smooth flow of people and goods, effective operating processes and rehabilitation. From the very beginning, the project partners made extensive use of a CAVE automatic virtual environment, allowing groups of users of the hospital’s different functions to influence the content of the hospital right from the start of planning, effectively offering users an opportunity to influence their future working environment.

The user-oriented design process and virtual space also made it possible to improve the functionality of the new hospital and cut down on the total cost of the project via facility optimisation.

Ground broken in February 2017

Construction began in February 2017, while Sweco continued its design efforts in collaboration with the other Alliance partners by refining the designs prepared so far. In addition to rehabilitation and modern hospital engineering, the design process continued to emphasise systems for ensuring patient safety, smart building services engineering solutions, automated storage and transports as well as communications and security systems that facilitate operations.

The opening of phase I, which includes the new hospital’s core functions, was celebrated on 17 January 2020, but the construction continues: the construction of phase II of the hospital will continue up to 2021, which is when the rest of the facilities included in the project will be ready for commissioning.

Image: Kainua – Kainuun uusi sairaala -allianssi