As the healthcare design industry looks back on 2025, it’s clear that the sector maximized growth and new opportunities while adapting to significant challenges, including economic volatility, rising construction costs, funding uncertainty, and workforce shortages.
To help review the trends and shifts that defined the past year, Healthcare Design asked leaders across the sector, including healthcare organizations and architecture, interior design, and construction firms, to share what stood out (good or bad) this year and what lessons they’re taking forward.
Here’s what they had to say.
Biggest trends shaping healthcare design in 2025?
“One of the biggest forces is the consolidation of health systems and rise of clinical partnerships. As large systems integrate with smaller providers and physician groups, organizations are identifying opportunities to streamline operations, expand research, and reduce duplicative services. These partnerships can drive standardization and strengthen financial stability, but they also bring challenges such as less local autonomy, more complex governance, and higher expectations for integrated, scalable solutions. For designers, this means strategic alignment, shared resources, and cross-campus planning matter as much as any single facility.”—Kierstyn Feldlavy, associate, architect, and medical planner, SmithGroup (Denver)
“Beyond tariffs, the broader political landscape is causing uncertainty. Policies that shift, such as the recent decision affecting student loans and professional classification, raise real concerns about workforce pipelines. If certain healthcare roles are suddenly not considered ‘professional’ for loan programs, how does that affect long-term staffing? It’s not about partisan politics; it’s about recognizing that the U.S. healthcare system can’t sustain a status quo that’s already strained. Partnership models like health systems collaborating with major tech firms signal that we know transformation is necessary, even if the path feels uncertain.”—Jennifer L. Storey, senior principal, health sector lead (U.S.), Stantec (Cleveland)
“The industry-wide push toward rightsizing care delivery, particularly around ambulatory care and microsites. We are constantly asking the question of what we want to maximize: resources (in which case we consider consolidating multiple sites into a larger facility to share common expenses like environmental services) or access (this is where the microsite really shines). Health systems are rethinking the enormous capital footprints of the past and focusing on nimble, high-impact environments that meet patients where they are.”—Lauren Cole, system director of design strategy, Providence (Renton, Wash.)
“While hospitals and healthcare systems attempt to get a higher level of certainty and solution confidence in their project endeavors, we will see more alternative project delivery mechanisms become prevalent, such as design-build, progressive design-build, and integrated design process (IDP). … This shift is an indicator that we need to form strong and capable teams with a broad range of expertise to deliver our solutions despite how our contracts are formed.”—Jason Schroer, global sector director, community, executive vice president, HKS (Dallas)
“Rightsizing due to financial pressures has been a significant shift. The continued increase in hospital construction costs has had a major impact, with the average cost per square foot nearly doubling since pre-COVID. The industry continues to face workforce shortages and escalating costs for materials and labor.”—Randy Keiser, senior vice president, director of national healthcare, Turner Construction Company (Nashville, Tenn.)
“There’s a lot of uncertainty right now around overall price escalation in private insurance premiums and the likely expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies that could lead to more patients without coverage. When patient populations lose insurance coverage, this often leads to increased emergency department and urgent care volumes, which could mean a number of things for our clients, not the least of which are implications for available clinical space and overall capacity.
Without healthcare coverage, people often defer wellness checks and avoid early care interventions for curable conditions, which leads to sicker patients arriving at much higher volumes. The results of this will likely lead to greater demand for more clinical space, demand for clinical resources, and bottlenecks in patient flow for bed capacity in most medical centers.”—Hank Adams, senior vice president, global health director, HDR (Dallas)
“Speed to market isn’t a new idea; clients have always pushed for quick turnaround from pre-design to opening day. What has changed is how we meet these demands: more full-scale modular, prefabricated parts; design packages; and Lean strategies are helping teams hit faster deadlines. Aggressive timelines are driving a broader array of solutions across both design and construction, giving our industry a meaningful push toward innovation.”—Renee Lawrence, architect and medical planner, Boulder Associates (Boulder, Colo.)
What surprised you in healthcare design in 2025?
“I was genuinely surprised by how quickly design teams and health systems embraced experience-centered design language—not just as a trend, but as a strategic priority. There was a noticeable shift toward designing for the human experience, not just efficiency. Seeing ‘psychological safety,’ ‘dignity,’ and ‘trauma-informed design’ show up in boardroom conversations was a much-needed reset in how we approach space in healthcare.”—Lauren Cole, system director of design strategy, Providence (Renton, Wash.)
“We were encouraged by healthcare customers’ willingness to adopt alternative delivery methods amid economic uncertainty. In years past, we saw clients focused on incorporating the principles of progressive delivery methods, but without the actual contractual obligations. In 2025, collaborative progressive delivery methods like IPD and design-assist gained more traction to support managing complexity and risk. We’ve seen a 40 percent increase in healthcare project opportunities under these delivery methods compared to 2024.”—Ben Huffman, healthcare advisory council co-chair and senior vice president – account manager, Skanska (Durham, N.C.)
“The number of mega projects that continue to move forward despite market challenges. Currently, there are more than 30 healthcare projects in design and construction, each valued at over $1 billion.”—Randy Keiser, senior vice president, director of national healthcare, Turner Construction Company (Nashville, Tenn.)
“A notable and growing shift to ambulatory healthcare services than anticipated, driven by multiple factors, ranging from reimbursement advantages, lesser construction type, and occupancy costs to advanced healthcare procedures that were formerly always inpatient.”—Sam Burnette, principal, Earl Swensson Associates (ESa; Nashville, Tenn.)
What lessons did the healthcare design sector learn in 2025?
“Severe workforce shortages and burnout proved that current clinical workflows are unsustainable. Accelerating the integration of AI and other technologies, like ambient documentation, could drastically reduce the administrative burden and improve clinician resilience. At the same time, unsustainable construction costs pushed health systems to shift more complex services to specialized, lower-cost outpatient settings—preserving capital and freeing inpatient beds for the most critical, complex cases while also improving access . Together, these shifts signal a fundamental transformation in care delivery that prioritizes flexibility, efficiency, and sustainability.”—Craig Passey, director of health, SmithGroup (Phoenix)
Anne DiNardo is editor-in-chief of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].
