Building the Future: A Contractor’s Guide to Healthcare Construction Trends

Healthcare contractors must be prepared to adapt to the changing needs of facilities, particularly with regards to patient experience.

When You’re Done Reading This, You’ll Know...

● How critical patient experience has become to healthcare facility

construction and renovation projects

● What new trends in patient care mean for the future of facilities and

construction projects

● The technology that is creating better, more adaptable facilities to meet

the changing needs of healthcare consumers

● Why sustainability will be key in building the healthcare facilities of the

future

About HEPACART™

HEPACART™ was initially developed to protect patients and improve productivity during hospital construction, renovation and maintenance projects.

All of our products are designed for contractors and healthcare operations personnel to comply with the Infection Control Risk Assessment Guidelines to aid in infectious disease control, dust abatement and dust containment. HEPACART™ products are used to protect the environment in many types of high-risk applications.

The number of new hospital construction projects assessed at $50 million or more, as of 2014.

Source: Construction Market Data

37

The approximate premium costs for using best evidence-based design

Source: The Hastings Center

8%

Years it would take to earn ROI onevidence-based design project

Source: The Hastings Center

3

Patient Experience Trumps All

Medicare Reimbursement

“Since July 2007, hospitals subject to the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) annual payment update provisions must collect and submit Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) data in order to receive their full IPPS annual payment update.”

Source: cms.gov

How Contractors Must Address Patient Experience

Human Centered Design: It is no longer enough to share a two-dimensional plan for a new facility. The future has designers from a range of backgrounds building full scale models and soliciting feedback from staff, administrators, and the community. Human centered design focuses on how a space will really be used, built from experience and data.

How Contractors Must Address Patient Experience

Fresh Amenities: No longer are a hospital cafeteria and parking garage enough. To create a patient centered building, a variety of amenities for both patients and their families will be emphasized in new construction and renovation projects. This could include: ● Improved waiting areas with internet connectivity, functional for both

groups and privacy● Furniture and space for loved ones to spend the night in patient rooms● Health-focused experiences like farmer’s markets and exercise areas

How Contractors Must Address Patient Experience

Ethnography: Community feedback will be a core part of the future of healthcare design and construction. Ethnographers can weigh in on new designs in light of different cultural needs of the actual healthcare consumers that will use the facility.

Challenges for Contractors

Undertaking a new healthcare project in the future will mean adding patient experience to a list of must haves. In many cases, these patient experience issues may even come to overshadow or expand budgets because it is so critical. Contractors should be prepared to work more closely than ever with designers and other stakeholders in creating the spaces of the future.

Challenges for Contractors

Contractors should be prepared to be very clear about costs. According to Health Facilities Management Magazine (HFMM), “Standard accounting procedures that separate capital costs and operational costs also work against flexible designs by emphasizing first costs to the detriment of life-cycle savings”

Source: HFMMagazine.com

New Treatment Strategies

Keeping Patients Healthy

While patient health is always an ideal outcome after treatment, going forward we will see more emphasis on keeping patients healthy before they ever become ill, which will mean more hospital resources and spaces dedicated to wellness, from yoga rooms to outpatient clinics.

Number of people who will turn 65 between 2011 and 2029

(Based on estimates from the Census Bureau, Pew Research Center and Social Security Administration.)

79 Million

Keeping Patients Out of Hospitals

As the Baby Boomer generation continues to age, they will seek more healthcare and increasingly demand for flexible, comfortable options. Inpatient facilities may add outpatient clinics, staff facilities for homecare visits, and those spaces that can support ambulatory care.

Some experts project that in the future hospital revenue shift to 15% inpatient/85% outpatient. That means a huge difference in how space is used.

Source: DPR Construction

Challenges to Contractors

Experience healthcare contractors may indeed begin to see per project sizes decreasing, as hospitals renovate and reorganize rather than starting from scratch. Says HFMM, “Current assets are very important in terms of how well they can be repurposed or reused. For various services, we used to always demolish the facility, but hospital administrators are now asking how we can repurpose them.”

Source: HFMMagazine.com

Technological Advancements in Medicine & Construction

Telemedicine: What it Is

Telemedicine or Telehealth is the process of delivering healthcare services via the internet and/or phone. The ubiquity of smartphones and high speed internet has meant an explosive opportunity for healthcare facilities to expand their telemedicine services. It is particularly useful for helping patients to manage chronic illnesses like diabetes or asthma without necessitating office or hospital visits.

Telemedicine revenue growth expected through 2020 for a total of $3.5 billion.

Source: IBISWorld

40%

Telemedicine: What it Means for Contractors

While there is some speculation that an increase in telemedicine will mean a decrease in construction projects, there will still be building needs for implementing this technology.

Physicians will need spaces for consultations, that include secure, HIPAA compliant networks. While this may not mean big, new facility construction projects, it may very well mean smaller scale renovations and sustainable repurposing.

Electronic Health Records (EHR)

EHR not only makes it easier for patients to access their own records but also connects patients and their key data to their personal network of healthcare workers. That means that providers can be spread further apart and more specialized in their services without sacrificing quality of care.

“Smart” Buildings

Buildings that are designed for maximum efficiency -- both in terms of building operations and in terms of staff and patient comfort -- are becoming the new norm. Smart buildings can control climates, let patients check themselves in, and otherwise expedite hospital processes.

Challenges for Contractors

Both telemedicine and smart building techniques must be definitively integrated into new hospital construction projects. This can indeed create a major challenge for contractors who must not only fulfill the facility’s current needs but also predict future needs. Staying on top of these types of technological trends will be critical going forward.

Sustainability Concerns

Sustainability in Brief

Sustainability is such a large issue in the future of all types of construction that it would be impossible to cover every aspect of it here. Suffice to say, looking to the future, sustainability and healthcare construction will go hand in hand. Hospitals are major energy consumers and by building facilities that can draw from renewable energy, lowering operating costs without sacrificing patient care, hospitals can add even more value to their communities.

Conclusions

How to Build the Future

It is impossible to predict exactly what the future will hold for healthcare construction, but we can be sure that technology, sustainability, and above all patient experience will be key in designing and implementing facilities that can continue to effectively meet the needs of a diverse group of healthcare consumers now and into the future.

For more analysis of healthcare construction trends, codes, and essential tools, visit:

www.hepacart.com