Healthcare construction projects require careful planning and strategic measures to ensure success in today’s dynamic landscape. With increasingly long lead times for components and specialized machinery, a well-executed procurement process becomes vital. Additionally, embracing innovative approaches such as modularization, prefabrication, and department outsourcing can help healthcare organizations reduce costs while maintaining efficiency.

The Importance of a Robust Procurement Process

In the complex world of healthcare construction, careful planning and strategic measures within the procurement process have never been more critical. The current market’s long lead times for equipment can swiftly derail a project.

With speed-to-market and revenue as the prime objective, having the entire project team onboard very early on and having collaborative holistic discussions allows forward-thinking healthcare systems to find cost surety.

Harnessing the Power of Modularization and Prefabrication

Modularization and prefabrication are invaluable tools for reducing healthcare build costs. Leveraging economies of scale plays a significant role in lowering build costs.

Modularization and prefabrication offer substantial benefits in terms of speed-to-market and revenue generation. They significantly reduce design time, while enabling the team to expedite both the design and construction phases. It’s starting to change the traditional way that we are used to designing, developing, and constructing a project.

This is accomplished by streamlining processes and increasing efficiency, allowing healthcare organizations to meet market demands faster and more economically.

The Strategic Role of Outsourcing

Outsourcing specific departments or services can be an effective cost-cutting strategy for healthcare construction projects. For instance, constructing a medical office building (MOB) with fewer departments and outsourcing certain high-cost-per-square foot services such as imaging or pharmaceutical can substantially reduce project costs and overall square footage.

Similarly, hospital builds can benefit from outsourcing non-hospital departments to separate facilities adjacent to the main hospital. This approach can drastically reduce costs, as these separate office space build-outs cost significantly less, nearly one-third, than constructing a major hospital that must follow extremely high build standards. The focus should shift from cost per square foot to revenue per square foot, ensuring that each square foot of the facility generates maximum revenue.

Takeaways

To ensure success in healthcare construction projects in today’s market, key strategies include:

  • Critically evaluate the procurement process, emphasizing early collaboration.
  • Explore the benefits of modularization and prefabrication to reduce costs and accelerate time to market.
  • Assess outsourcing departments or services to lower build costs and optimize square footage.
  • Maintain a revenue-per-square-foot mindset to maximize the project’s profitability.
  • Foster collaboration across the Project team from project inception.

By implementing robust procurement processes, leveraging modularization and prefabrication, and considering department outsourcing, healthcare organizations can lower costs while maintaining efficiency. It is crucial to foster collaboration among all stakeholders to ensure a holistic approach that considers cost, program, and speed-to-market. In this ever-evolving landscape, healthcare build groups that embrace new methodologies and remain adaptable will be poised to thrive in the future.