jen headshotI’ve been determined to plant my feet firmly into summer this year, embracing afternoons off on Fridays and filling my family’s weekends with road trips, festivals, baseball games, and everything in between. It’s been a blast carrying on traditions and making some new ones along the way.

And, professionally, I feel like we’ve been packing in just as much activity during the workweek here at Healthcare Design. There are a few traditions that come this time of year, too, most notably our August issue.

Within its pages, you’ll find our annual Design Showcase and loads of projects worth perusing for inspiration and innovation.

The program encourages firms and healthcare organizations to submit their latest work. The Design Showcase not only helps us capture this moment in time for the industry by providing a collection of the projects being delivered today but weaves in a competition element that bestows awards to some of the best solutions our jury saw.

And I have to say, it’s a pretty exciting year for the latter. The mix of organizations and patient populations served and thoughtful solutions curated for them is impressive, offering tons of takeaways that are applicable for all.

Speaking of awards, the summer season also marks the selection of our 2022 HCD 10 honorees and Rising Star winners. These represent our two professional awards programs at HCD, celebrating the industry contributions of professionals across 10 categories as well as newcomers to the field who are already making a splash, respectively. Watch for coverage being rolled out in upcoming issues.

Meanwhile, we’ve also worked to dive deeper into a subject you’ve all brought to our attention in recent months: staffing in healthcare design firms. In June, we launched a new survey to ask architecture/engineering/construction companies about the challenges they’re facing in terms of staff recruitment and retention as well as the solutions being put into place.

Particularly, as project workload continues to surge, you’ve shared your pain points in managing that workload with current staffing and the difficulties finding experienced healthcare design professionals to help carry the weight.

It’s a sensitive topic, and one we’ve found many firms grappling with. Here you’ll find an overview of results from our survey. And this month, watch the website for a downloadable report with extended coverage that you can access, as well