UNM Hospital, Presbyterian Hospital, Lovelace Medical Center, the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center, and the medical office campuses along I-25. Albuquerque's medical building sector demands infection control, hot-work coordination, and off-hours sequencing that standard commercial roofing protocols do not address.
Albuquerque's medical building sector is rooted in four major hospital campuses and a dense network of medical office and specialty clinic buildings that together form one of the most demanding roofing environments in the state. UNM Hospital — the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Ave NE — is the state's only Level I trauma center and operates around the clock with critical-care floors, surgical suites, and research laboratories that cannot tolerate disruption from roofing work above them. Presbyterian Hospital on Girard Blvd NE is the state's largest private hospital system. Lovelace Medical Center on Gibson Blvd SE and the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center on Constitution Ave NE complete the tier-one hospital campus inventory that defines Albuquerque's medical roofing market.
Roofing work on medical buildings is not simply commercial roofing with additional paperwork. The infection control requirements on occupied hospital campuses require that every penetration — every drill hole, every temporary opening during tear-off — be documented and covered to prevent construction particulate from reaching patient-care areas. Hot-work permits on surgical floor rooftops involve the hospital's infection control officer, the facilities manager, and the fire-suppression contractor in a pre-work review sequence that takes days, not hours. Off-hours scheduling on ICU and surgical floor rooftops is standard — not optional — because daytime work directly over those areas creates unacceptable risk.
We have developed the coordination protocols that medical campus facilities managers require. A roofing contractor who shows up to a hospital project without a documented infection control plan will be removed from the site. We arrive with that documentation complete.
Infection Control and Particulate Management on Hospital Campuses
The fundamental concern on hospital campus roofing projects is airborne particulate. Modified bitumen tear-off, cutting of rigid insulation, and mechanical fastening all generate particulate that can migrate into building HVAC systems if precautions are not taken. At UNM Hospital and Presbyterian, where HEPA-filtered air handling serves surgical suites and immunocompromised patient wards, particulate infiltration from roofing work is a patient safety issue — not an aesthetic one.
Our infection control protocol on Albuquerque hospital campuses begins with pre-construction coordination with the hospital's Infection Control and Prevention team. We document the adjacency of every planned work zone to patient-care areas, confirm intake damper positions and HVAC system boundaries with the hospital's facilities engineers, and specify particulate control measures — vacuum tear-off, HEPA-filter containment on penetrations, temporary barrier installation — that are reviewed and approved before work begins. Every deviation from the approved plan is communicated to the infection control officer before it occurs, not after.
Hot-Work Permits and Off-Hours Scheduling
Open-flame work on hospital campus rooftops requires hot-work permits processed through the hospital's fire safety and facilities management teams, not just the City of Albuquerque fire marshal. At UNM Hospital and the VA campus, hot-work permits involve a pre-work review that includes the facilities engineer, the infection control officer, and the hospital's fire safety coordinator. We initiate the hot-work permit process during pre-construction — not the week before the hot-work scope begins.
Off-hours scheduling is standard on rooftop areas directly over surgical floors, ICU zones, and imaging suites. Scheduled surgical procedures and imaging studies do not pause for roofing noise above them, which means tear-off, mechanized fastening, and other high-noise production work on those zones is confined to evening and early-morning windows. We price medical campus projects with the off-hours scheduling requirement built into the budget — not as a change order after the project manager discovers that daytime work over the surgical wing is not possible.
Medical Office and Specialty Clinic Buildings
Beyond the major hospital campuses, Albuquerque's medical office building stock — dialysis centers, imaging clinics, oncology offices, and surgical centers along the Lomas Boulevard NE medical corridor, the Gibson Blvd medical zone near Kirtland AFB, and the growing Northeast Heights clinic campuses — presents a scaled-down version of the same coordination requirements. Dialysis and infusion center buildings have critical HVAC requirements for immunocompromised patients. Imaging centers have equipment rooms with vibration sensitivity. Outpatient surgical centers have the same hot-work permit requirements as hospital campuses.
We assess the specific operational constraints of every medical building before scoping — not just the roof deck condition. The coordination requirements for a dialysis center reroof are different from those for a standard medical office building, and a scope that doesn't account for those differences will produce problems during production that cost more to resolve than they would have cost to anticipate.
Frequently asked questions
What infection control documentation do you provide for hospital campus roofing?
We provide an Infection Control Risk Assessment (ICRA) document prior to any roofing work on hospital campuses. The ICRA identifies the work zone, the adjacent patient-care areas, the particulate control measures in place, the HVAC coordination plan, and the escalation procedure if conditions in the work zone change. This document is reviewed and approved by the hospital's infection control officer before work begins on each phase.
How do hot-work permits work on Albuquerque hospital campuses?
Hospital campus hot-work permits are separate from and additional to the City of Albuquerque fire marshal permit. At UNM Hospital and the VA campus, the hot-work review process involves the facilities engineer, the infection control officer, and the fire safety coordinator. We initiate this process during pre-construction — it takes several days to complete — and we hold production on any hot-work scope until the hospital permit is issued and the pre-work inspection is complete.
Can roofing work proceed over occupied surgical floors?
Work directly over occupied surgical suites and ICU floors is confined to off-hours windows — typically evening and early morning — where surgical and critical-care schedules allow it. We coordinate the production schedule with the hospital's facilities and OR scheduling teams during pre-construction and document the approved work windows before mobilization. No production begins over those zones outside the approved windows.
Do you work at the VA Medical Center on Constitution Ave?
We work on the commercial buildings in the vicinity of the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center. Work on the VA campus itself is subject to federal procurement requirements. For privately-owned medical office and clinic buildings adjacent to VA facilities, we coordinate any necessary access or security documentation in pre-construction.
