Jason Schroer, global sector director, community, executive vice president, HKS (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.
Jason Schroer (Headshot: Darryl Shields, HKS)
Healthcare Design’s 2026 Healthcare Design Industry Predictions series continues with Jason Schroer, global sector director, community, executive vice president, HKS (Dallas).
Here, Schroer discusses some of the opportunities and challenges he sees for 2026, including developing automation to meet clients’ needs and creating tools and partnerships to tackle the level of solution-confidence that the industry demands.
Healthcare Design: What lessons did the industry learn from 2025’s challenges?
Schroer: The design industry needs to continue to bring wholesale solutions forward to our clients to increase solution-confidence. We can achieve this through key partnerships and collaborations. Additionally, we need to develop automation that helps us to meet the demands from our clients: data-based tools that look at the full spectrum of a project from pre-inception to completion and beyond occupancy.
HCD: Where do you think the healthcare design industry will head in 2026?
Schroer: Clients will continue to demand a higher level of solution certainty in particular on the investments required for mega projects. This means we need to learn more from facility performance evaluations (data) and have precise benchmarking—lean on research and outcome-driven design.
HCD: What do you see as the biggest opportunity for change in the new year?
Schroer: Project complexity and pressures to deliver continue to grow. Projects will require diverse teams and high levels of collaboration to execute with certainty.
The biggest opportunity is how we might create new tools and new partnerships to tackle the level of solution-confidence that the industry demands.
HCD: What emerging trends or opportunities are you most excited about—and why?
Schroer: Figuring out ways to create new tools that will help us tackle more complex projects.
Anne DiNardo is editor-in-chief of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].
