In contrast to a major replacement strategy, facilities can respond to the delivery of care challenge by a Phased Replacement Facility (PRF).

By R. Wayne Estopinal

TEG Architects has performed more than 3,200 projects for healthcare clients. Through this experience, the firm understands that one thing in healthcare is certain; delivery of care is a complex challenge.

The complexity of this delivery of care challenge is exacerbated by the fact that most healthcare facilities were not designed to respond to the issues of today. In fact, the average construction date of most healthcare square footage across the United States is from the mid-1970s. In short, most of the healthcare institutions the firm works with are trying to compete for patients and staff in 2016 with facilities that are nearly 45 years old.

Phased Replacement Facility

Reality also tells us most healthcare institutions are not in a strategic or financial position to simply build a replacement facility and abandon antiquated facilities. In contrast to a major replacement strategy, facilities can respond to the delivery of care challenge by a Phased Replacement Facility (PRF).

In a PRF, a medical campus is master planned with a long-range vision – allowing the leadership team and Board to undertake a series of smaller projects. This phased approach ultimately results in a new medical center or a replacement hospital and allows the medical center to achieve a fully modernized facility without undertaking a major project of literally hundreds of millions of dollars. An added benefit is the fact that projects in early phases help to pay for later projects.

ED+PC

To provide a creative solution to this challenge, TEG Architects utilizes a planning and design strategy, titled Efficient Design+Productive Care (ED+PC). This process aligns optimal clinical relationships and design features to deliver incredible departmental and overall facility efficiency and productivity.

ED+PC has been used on numerous major projects and replacement hospitals throughout the nation. Whether a full replacement hospital or a phased replacement hospital, this collaborative and innovative process has proven to facilitate positive clinical outcomes, incredible workplace satisfaction, patient satisfaction improvements and financial success.

Positive Financial Results

The financial results healthcare clients realize immediately have been transformative. The manner in which TEG engages the community leadership, community focus groups, medical staff, hospital leadership, departmental staffs and patients builds consensus regarding the clinical and facility alignment so facilities become the healthcare provider of choice by the community, the employer of choice and a major part of the community’s fabric. Through ED+PC, clients see increases in net revenues by 20 percent or more, experience major departments that lower their staffing costs and departments that improve their profit margins by 200 to 300 percent over what was experienced prior to the replacement facility.

Essentially, every healthcare facility in Kentucky will pursue some level of renovation or addition project over the next five years. In doing so, leaders of these institutions have the opportunity to plan for a phased replacement facility and allow each renovation/addition project to be a step toward a more efficient and productive overall campus.

TEG Architects serves clients nationally in collaborating with clients to create the most efficient and productive healthcare facilities imaginable. Let us work with your leadership team in creating a vision of how your campus can be optimized for significantly improved financial performance, higher patient satisfaction and being the employer of choice.

-R. Wayne Estopinal, AIA, ACHA, LEED AP is president at TEG Architects.