Hank Adams, senior vice president, global director of healthcare, HDR (Dallas)
Editor’s Note: This article is part a Healthcare Design’s Industry Predictions series. Throughout January, HCD will share perspectives from respected industry voices on where the sector may head in 2026 and what challenges and opportunities are on their radar.
Hank Adams (Headshot: Courtesy of HDR)
Healthcare Design’s 2026 Healthcare Design Industry Predictions series continues with Hank Adams, Senior Vice President, Global Director of Healthcare, HDR (Dallas).
Here, Adams discusses some of the opportunities and challenges he sees for 2026, including new AI tools to support the design process, continued opportunities for large-scale hospital tower projects, and the future of modular, adaptable, and resilient infrastructure for healthcare delivery.
Healthcare Design: What lessons did the industry learn in 2025?
Hank Adams: Most current healthcare projects are under significant cost pressure due to continued escalation in construction, equipment, and overall labor costs. This has become a reality for the industry and is putting more pressure than ever on the project delivery models being employed to deliver our design, construction, and project activation.
The project vision, scope, schedule and budget expectations must be in alignment very early in the delivery process, before detailed planning and design commence, to make sure the entire team is aligned with market conditions and budget realities. We often refer to this process as “Phase 0” and it’s now more important than ever for launching successful projects.
In a challenging economic environment, the projects where we use a more Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) model better aligns the collective team in a higher performing way. Overall, the team’s approach to risk management is very different and much more effective than a more traditional delivery model. All contracted signatories own the project risk register and are stakeholders in developing creative solutions to very complex cost problems often involving design, construction, and setting expectations.
Forecasting risk has gone beyond the traditional approach where the construction manager leads this effort. We must be working together as a project team to address things like material availability or hikes in cost, possibilities of supply chain interruption, constructability issues due to trade shortages … the project team must create options to address these complex challenges ahead of time and be prepared. Project teams in this integrated form can be nimble to make decisions and recommendations around really complicated problems to prevent cost increases to the owner.
HCD: Where do you think the healthcare design industry will head in 2026?
Adams: Large-scale hospital towers that connect to major academic medical campuses will continue to present important design opportunities. Many of these institutions are replacing aging infrastructure and require towers with equally large-scale interventional suites to serve the needs of the inpatient tower, the emergency department (ED), cardiology, oncology, and much more.
As these institutions also grow their geographic reach, patient populations grow in tandem and require not only more available beds at the main medical campus but also expanded outpatient services to broaden the network and bring care closer to home.
HCD: What do you see as the biggest opportunity for change in the new year?
Adams: New artificial intelligence (AI) tools that augment the design process.
HCD: What emerging trends or opportunities are you most excited about—and why?
Adams: We’re entering a future where modular, adaptable, and resilient infrastructure for healthcare delivery means change doesn’t require full renovation or a new building. Designing for affordable future adaptation as care needs and models change is now expected.
New treatment models, especially for cancer care, are becoming both more commonplace and more affordable. However, these new therapies bring added complexities. New targeted radiation therapies require a fresh set of considerations for safety for both patients and staff, and designing these advanced care facilities will be quite an opportunity in the coming years.
Anne DiNardo is editor-in-chief of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].
