Lake Nona VA hospital needs a good stud

Steel stud's saga shows why VA Hospital's delays mount
March 17, 2012
By Marni Jameson, Orlando Sentinel

They say the devil is in the details. For those mired in Orlando's stalled VA Hospital construction project, thousands of details still need to be hammered out. And the clock is ticking.

One of those devilish details — an unassuming 6-inch steel stud — is but one example of what has put the long-awaited medical facility more than 15 months behind schedule.

Since the hospital's October 2008 groundbreaking, more than 3,200 questions about the working drawings have been brought to the VA's attention. Each of these questions takes the form of a Request for Information, or an RFI. Each one slows the clock.

In the hospital's case, the RFI process goes like this: The subcontractor brings the problem to the contractor, who sends an RFI to the VA, who forwards it to the architectural firm, who sends it to the engineer who made the decision, who responds. That answer then wends its way back down the same channel.
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