HCD Guest Author

The integrated project delivery (IPD) approach toward hospital design and construction has gotten a lot of attention lately,as project teams have become much more attuned to the fact that working collaboratively typically produces much better results than working in separate silos.

That very same shift towards integration is also being paralleled in the hospital facility itself, particularly the operating room (OR) environment, where there is a fast-emerging trend afoot in the development, growth, and demand for the hybrid OR.

A visit to two local healthcare facilities in the Cleveland Clinic Health System provided a rare treat for HEALTHCARE DESIGN’s Editor-in-Chief Todd Hutlock and I, along with the Editor-in-Chief on Healthcare Building Ideas Jennifer Kovacs Silvis.

On a recent trip to the Bay Area (to review session proposals for the HEALTHCARE DESIGN.12 conference!), I was invited to spend an afternoon visiting two leading architectural firms, both of which do significant work in the healthcare arena—the San Francisco offices of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and SmithGroupJJR.

One of the neatest things about covering the latest technology in buildings is witnessing how innovative folks are taking existing technology and figuring out how to apply it in a hospital setting.

Congratulations! After months of a relentless pursuit, you have convinced a high-impact performer to take a risk and leave a good situation to join your organization. 

But your job is not done. 

Don’t think you can just give your new superstar the keys to their office and let them do their magic. Most studies suggest that how well that high performer ultimately performs is greatly impacted during the employee’s first 90 days. 

A recent survey, conducted by Mortenson Construction at our HEALTHCARE DESIGN conference last year in November, provided very informative reading and gave a snapshot of how healthcare architects, providers, vendors, and those in construction are feeling about the healthcare industry as a whole.

As reported here, Switzerland moving forward with plans to build a mock-1950s village — dubbed "Dementiaville" by its detractors — catering exclusively for elderly sufferers of Alzheimer's and other debilitating mental ill

I was at a healthcare conference recently, chatting with a client, when we happened to overhear another general contractor bragging about how his company just returned over $3 million to an owner upon completion of a major hospital replacement project. My client remarked that if it were his facility, he would rather have been given the option to use the cost savings to add scope or upgrade a major system. For him, there was greater value in being able to enhance his current project.

In case you didn't hear this recently reported story on NPR, a new study has now linked a 2010 outbreak of Legionnaire's disease to a water feature at a hospital in Wisconsin. If you're not familiar, Legionnaires' disease is a severe and potentially deadly form of pneumonia caused by the bacteria Legionella, which can be inhaled from contaminated water sources.

The Humber River Regional Hospital (HRRH) redevelopment project, an undertaking of nearly $1.75 billion scheduled to be completed in 2015, brings together a group of firms and organizations dedicated to designing and building a hospital that will improve patient and bedside care. The 1.7-million-square-foot hospital in Toronto, Ontario, is the result of collaboration between the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, HRRH, and Plenary Health Care Partnerships (PHCP).

With the recent report from the American Institute of Architects that there are now more than $1 billion worth of stalled projects in its database, it seems that the industry may have hit a whole new level of frustration. The AIA database now contains 36 projects worth a total of almost $1.2 billion, and 50 (both anonymous and public) investors looking for projects to finance, a fairly staggering number.