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Pivotal Retail Group has a government side. We are a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business. In 2021 we bid and won the “The Nurse Call Project” at the Salisbury VAMC located in Salisbury, NC. The project involved replacing approximately 400 nurse call stations over seven floors and three building. It also included replacing the antiquated CAT wiring system with modern fiber optic cabling and a new system for grounding all the new equipment.
Pivotal started the partnering process from the very first meeting with the engineering department at the facility. We brought our entire management team and laid out our intended plan of action. We made sure the staff at the VA were comfortable with what we planned and worked with them to satisfy their needs and concerns.
It was a challenging project. Pivotal performed the work during the heart of the pandemic. The census (the total number of beds occupied) never fell below 98%. This presented several situations the VA or Pivotal could not have predicted. The first was how do we work in a patient room with the patient still in the room? We did not. Pivotal’s supervisor and Project Manager put together a digital schedule using the 2% of unoccupied rooms throughout our contract work area and managed to find at least four open rooms on a daily basis. We would go in, change the devices, clean the space, and move on to the next scheduled room. Once inspected and approved by the facilities engineer, the hospital would move another patient into the completed room thus allowing us another room to work in. It worked well and allowed us to complete the project on time and on budget. Talk about teamwork!
Execution of the work and a strong quality control plan were also a key to the project success. A full understanding of the scope of work and the willingness to be creative and not worrying about minor issues. Our mandate in the field is to do our jobs and if we can, help our clients do their jobs as well. About two thirds of the way through the project, one of the nursing supervisors raised a concern over an issue she thought was a design flaw. After some investigation and discussion, the Pivotal management team agreed it was a definite flaw. Rather than carry the problem back to the designers, which would have greatly affected the schedule, we met with the local VA engineer and the nursing supervisor along with our sub-contractor. Within an hour we had a great solution which everyone agreed to and were able to implement it within 48 hours. We never lost a step and had a very happy client.
The Nurse Call Project was the first project to be completed on time in five years at the facility. Our supervisor was given the VA Award of Excellence, the highest honor for a contractor for his hard work and due diligence. Great facility, great staff, and a great Pivotal Retail Group team are the keys to success. Each one of us at Pivotal strive to make all projects this successful.