The tech-savvy and environmentally sustainable design of Hervey Bay's St Stephen's Hospital has been celebrated at the 2015 Master Builders Construction Awards.
Opened in October 2014 with a price tag of more than $96 million, the private hospital won two gongs for 'best health service building over $5 million' and 'best overall construction for the Burnett and Wide Bay'.
General manager and director of nursing Amanda Cruwys said clinicians, architects, builders and patients all worked together on the collaborative design.
"Healthcare design and technology has progressed a long way and this attractive facility has been designed to improve workflow as well as provide open spaces to promote patient wellbeing," she said.
"The hospital has been designed to meet the needs of the Wide Bay community by providing a very modern healthcare facility which offers the benefits of the latest technology in the hands of the best medical specialists.
"The technology, which replaces handwritten medical charts with electronic medical records, increases patient safety by reducing transcription errors and also increases clinicians' time at patients' bedsides by reducing administrative tasks."
Capital works project co-ordinator Christine Riley said Cockram Construction Limited worked well to ensure the unique requirements for environmental sustainability with fully integrated digital health care were met.
"The hospital building and integrated technology is a showpiece for Australian healthcare, so much so that our executive director, Richard Royle, has been inundated with requests from the national and international health community to visit and view the hospital," she said.
The hospital is a private, not-for-profit facility owned and operated by UnitingCare Health.
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