The relocation of Memorial Hermann Katy required a lot of intensive care
By SARAH VIREN
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Ambulances were used as moving vans and patients were the freight Saturday morning as Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital moved two exits down Interstate 10 from its 100,000-square-foot facility to a new home three times that size.
In some ways, this moving day was much like any other moving day. There was the last-minute packing, refrigerators cleaned of leftovers, and a rumbling truck waiting outside. But the differences were significant: the $200,000 price tag, the stacks of gurneys and IV stands rather than couches and TVs and, of course, the name itself.
“Relocation” is what Katy Memorial called its daylong move Saturday. The effort required the expertise of consultants and coordination with TxDOT to change highway signs. It is the second of three moves planned this month by the hospital chain. Last weekend, the Fort Bend facility moved into new digs in Sugar Land. And next weekend heart and vascular patients from Memorial Hermann Southwest will move to a new freestanding hospital dedicated solely to the treatment of those problems.
“A project of this size we started a year ahead of time,” said Craig Haynie, project manager for Lesley & Associates, which also handles moves for law firms, oil and gas companies and universities. Hospitals, Haynie said, are the most complex because they involve human cargo.
