February 10, 2025
KI Wall Builds Brand Through Relationships with A&D (and Projects Like Bellin Health)
by Rob Kirkbride / Office Insight
As healthcare continues to evolve and healthcare systems work to create efficient, convenient and comfortable locations for patients and caregivers alike, many are turning to ambulatory surgery and specialty centers (ASCs). These specialized medical facilities are designed to provide same-day procedures in areas like orthopedics, gastroenterology (GI), ophthalmology and more.
These complex procedures used to be performed only in hospitals. But advancements in laparoscopic procedures, the use of digital imaging and telemedicine are contributing factors to the growing numbers of these procedures now being performed in ASCs. Procedures at ASCs are projected to grow at least 25% over the next 10 years according to OR Management News for two important reasons: both patients and providers like them.
ASCs have transformed the outpatient experience by providing a more convenient, cost-effective alternative to a full-service hospital while still delivering safe, quality care and positive patient outcomes, according to the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association.
Still, designing these high-volume, high-use spaces is a challenge, as Bellin Health, a healthcare provider in northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan found out when it built its Bellin Surgery & Specialty Center in Green Bay, Wis.
The Bellin Surgery & Specialty Center was designed to be a facility for 450 healthcare providers and staff. And it needed to champion collaboration, ensure visual and acoustic privacy and provide a world-class healthcare facility for patients. To solve these design challenges, Bellin Health turned to its hometown experts at KI Wall and its furniture integrator for the project, Duet Resource Group.
The Bellin Surgery & Specialty Center is a new, modern, four-story facility. The first floor includes orthopedics. Surgeries such as knee replacements and other procedures that include a stay of less than 24 hours happen on the second floor. The third floor includes facilities for gastroenterology and the fourth floor has more clinical space and also houses asthma, allergy and ear, nose and throat specialists. The front of the building has a physical therapy and stroke rehabilitation gym.
The non-clinical areas of each floor are identical, said Bellin Construction Project Manager Steve Vlotho. The Teamwork Area is a centralized location on each floor where nurses, certified nursing assistants and doctors can collaborate on care. Hallways extend from this hub with doors leading to clinical exam rooms. At the front of each floor is a patient reception and waiting area. Most of the healthcare providers have their own offices, though some are shared if they work from different clinics.
Almost all of the internal spaces in the building are created using KI Wall products, which creates just the right level of natural light, privacy and soundproofing. It also gives the healthcare company the flexibility to change the space as needed.
KI Wall has four distinct product lines that all work together to effectively create a single wall system that can be adapted in any way the customer might need, said Ryan Usiak, vice president KI Wall sales and operations.
The Bellin Surgery & Specialty Center is a good example of how KI Wall products come together to create a solution for the customer. Lightline, KI Wall’s frameless glass wall, in this application, with a four-inch base to provide maximum vertical adjustment, is used to create many of the offices. A translucent film lets light in, but provides some privacy. The company’s Evoke wall product, a solid, seamless wall, is used to separate offices and provide audible privacy with an STC rating of 50. The offices are surprisingly quiet, but when inside, it does not feel as if you are completely separated from the common space.
Providers appreciate the magnetic panel shells that allow them to hang items. Evoke walls also help with technology integration. Evoke walls are manufactured to include wiring and conduit when power is specified. The pre-assembled panels install quickly and connect essential technology such as light switches, thermostats and room schedulers.
Vlotho said Bellin chose to use demountable walls for their appearance and past experiences with the KI Wall products. “The look we were going for is a big advantage,” he said. “We have experience working with KI and these products in the past. We have four different locations using them now. Everyone likes the adjustability. These products help us to be able to do what we need them to do for each person. We’ve had a good experience with these products, so they fit our needs and work well for us.”
The KI Walls also help create a space that takes pressure off the main hospital and reduces costs. Many of the procedures, services and appointments happening at the Bellin Surgery & Specialty Center used to take place at Bellin Hospital in Green Bay, with physical therapy happening at several facilities in the area. The new facility helps the healthcare provider consolidate some of those services, said Vlotho.
One of the advantages of building a surgical and specialty center is the cost of the facility, he said. Since it is not a 24/7 facility, it can be built differently than a traditional hospital. Buildings like the Bellin Surgery & Specialty Care center are for procedures on otherwise healthy patients who might be having a knee or hip replacement where the surgery happens in the morning and the patient is sent home to recover in the afternoon. It also includes offices for follow up visits and orthopedics for recovery. There are no overnight stays.
Modern healthcare facilities are in a near-constant state of change. Facilities need to be flexible more than ever, said Vlotho.
“A couple of years ago, we would’ve never looked at modular walls and now we’re looking at it because it has decreased the time it takes to change a facility. Our biggest struggle is adaptability after the fact, because we’ve been known to change our mind a lot. We change a lot on the fly. With these modular wall systems, can we adapt as quickly as we need to adapt versus the old way, where you take the wall down and put a new wall up,” he said.
Traditional construction also includes the noise of demolition work, along with the dust and dirt that goes with it. And even with new construction, a floor might not be level. KI Wall products allow for adjustment to uneven floors.
The Launch of KI Wall
The Bellin project was important to KI Wall because it was one of the first under its rebranding. As a company, KI has been in the demountable wall business since 1989, but the company has always been better known as an educational furniture company.
KI Wall is now a separate brand under the larger KI umbrella. KI now includes its KI brand, KI Wall and Pallas Textiles. KI Wall Product Manager Nate Quintal said there is good reason for the change. KI has traditionally been sold through its strong group of reps and salespeople while sales of wall products have usually been through the A&D channel and because of that, the sooner you are on that spec, the more likely you are to win that business.
Since NeoCon, the KI Wall team has been visiting all of its 26 sales districts, telling the KI Wall story and explaining why it launched the separate brand. In survey after survey, architects and designers knew the KI brand for its excellence in educational furniture, both higher education and K-12, but few knew about its wall offerings.
A marketing company helped identify KI Wall strengths and weaknesses. The KI name was associated with good products and service, but it wasn’t associated with walls. And its website and marketing materials made it difficult for the A&D community to find them.
Telling the KI Wall story began with a lookbook, said Quintal. “It was one of those key pieces of information we had to have because it sets the stage for essentially what the brand is, but in an introductory way,” he said. “It’s difficult for a new person or a person unfamiliar with KI Wall (to understand our capabilities). So we wanted to make this lookbook as introductory as possible to help somebody understand what we can do in terms of different applications and hopefully inspire an architect or designer.”
At its very basic level, KI sells furnishings into places where people work, learn, and heal. KI Wall is agnostic and works across all of KI’s core markets. In many ways, it bridges all of them.
KI Wall also offers a full service package to its customers. They help with design assistance and inception, create high level quote drawings and estimates for their clients. They also help with project management, create the floor plan drawings, purchase hardware on behalf of the customer, handle the installation, pack their own trucks and ship the product to the end user with a 10 year warranty. KI Wall has core teams in Chicago, Atlanta, New York City, Boston and Florida. It also has installation support throughout North America.
KI Wall is a new brand for the company, but it is backed by decades of experience and manufacturing expertise. Its wall factory in Manitowoc is 240,000 square feet and Usiak has a 40-member team in Green Bay that includes estimators, project coordinators, engineers and CAD staff.
KI Wall faces some challenges as well. The Bellin project is a good example. Customers need to get wall products faster and faster.
“Talking through the project schedule timelines and how architects and designers are starting to recognize (that we can) help them complete that project within the time window or timeframe that they’ve handed over,” said Quintal. “That’s what truly makes K Wall one of the stronger manufacturers there is—the amount of work that we put into the product before it leaves our facility is designed to make the installation process go as quickly as possible.
“The core of KI Wall is the people that work for this company and our ability to partner with the architect or design firm to be there through the whole process.”