Taking a holistic approach to projects is a hallmark of Haskell’s work. Nowhere is this more true than in its healthcare practice, where Haskell has embraced flexibility and adaptability to serve its clients better.
“As an impartial and trusted advisor to our clients, it is critical that we have more tools to offer them than a hammer,” said Frank Mangin, President of Haskell’s Design & Consulting Services Group. “We’ve been able to help our clients over the years by addressing their challenges with solutions that not only involve the bricks-and-mortar world but also the kind of creative operational solutions that are often less expensive and more effective.”
In an industry that can be classified as traditional, intentional and measured in its approach to facility planning and construction, Haskell has deployed a blend of innovation and experience to craft solutions that meet clients where they are.
While the company prides itself on an integrated design-build approach to project delivery across numerous industries, it has taken a different approach to support the needs of its healthcare clients.
It all begins with understanding what they need.
Meeting clients where they are
Many large healthcare systems have ample in-house resources to manage procurement, planning and construction. So, while Haskell can provide its design-build approach, it also has cultivated three distinct areas of service offerings to best meet the market’s unique demands.
Having acquired FreemanWhite, an acclaimed healthcare design firm with a history dating back more than 125 years, Haskell’s Healthcare Design Division provides extensive expertise and experience to clients seeking design and planning support. Similarly, Haskell bolstered its Healthcare Consulting Division with the acquisition of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Catalyst, and is adept at translating clients’ vision and mission into physical environments that support efficient operations and the optimal patient experience.
The two work independently or in concert with Haskell Healthcare Construction, which possesses a deep well of industry expertise building complex medical facilities. This three-pronged approach enables Haskell Healthcare to offer a diverse collection of practical solutions.
“For us, it really depends on how our clients want their services,” said Kevin Meek, Vice President and Healthcare Consulting Division Leader of Healthcare Consulting at Haskell. “We have the ability to go to market in various ways, including as an integrated team or as standalone ones that provide the needed services for our clients.”
This flexibility not only satisfies a client’s immediate need but also creates strategic opportunities. For instance, a consulting project with a particular client through Consulting Services can form relationships that benefit future design or construction work.
Given the importance of flexibility in this environment, Chris Morales, Vice President of Haskell Healthcare Design, said the company had embraced three distinct models for project delivery in the healthcare space.
The first, design-bid-build, adheres to the traditional approach favored by many larger healthcare systems. This model employs one of Haskell’s service offerings overseeing a portion of a project.
The second is the design-build model, in which Haskell provides planning, design and construction services in an integrated model from concept through project delivery.
And the third, design-and-build, blends Haskell’s design-build success with the traditional model, enabling the company to honor individual contracts for various portions of a project and provide the client with the added value of a more integrated approach.
“With design-and-build, there are opportunities where our services might be procured separately, but we’re able to be successful in leveraging the full continuum of our service offerings,” Morales said. “That leads to an opportunity where we may provide the client with an enhanced level of service consistent with their unique needs, circumstances, and business objectives.”
A unique perspective
This breadth of services coupled with a deep well of knowledge elevates Haskell Healthcare in a crowded marketplace. More than 100 varied and diverse professionals are dedicated exclusively to the market and are supported by a company now more than 2,100 team members strong.
“The largest differentiator is that we have the capability to address all levels of service along the continuum of planning and construction for a particular client,” said Mark Allnutt, Division Leader for Haskell Healthcare Construction. “Most clients in their project planning and procurement process will have very clear procurement objectives. Depending on where they are, they may select services ranging from strategy through full implementation.”
Haskell’s ability to bring diverse perspectives, knowledge and expertise to bear across the client journey also enables it to provide added value. With a national client base, it sharing meaningful experiences and best practices from a project on the West Coast to enhance one in South Florida.
As such, Haskell stays ahead of the curve throughout the gradual evolution of the broader American healthcare market as it begins to tilt gradually toward adopting more integrated approaches to project delivery. This means factors such as speed to market, cost savings and operational efficiencies are becoming increasingly important for clients.
“We have the greatest opportunity as client advisors and advocates,” Morales said. “The one thing Haskell is very supportive of is the notion that we don’t bring a one-size-fits-all solution to any particular client. Haskell is happy to engage with a client where that client’s needs are and where we can serve them and provide that advisory capability.”
For example, Allnutt cited a renovation project for Labor, Delivery and Recovery rooms for Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida. The communicated a need for the facility to be finished well ahead of schedule, and Haskell was able to not only meet the accelerated timeline but finish a full two weeks ahead of schedule.
Design, Manufacture Construct Speeds Care
Free-Standing Emergency Departments (FSEDs) are, by definition, a community’s link to healthcare when residents need it most. So, as residential development has pushed into new areas across the country, health systems have faced a pressing need to build quickly.
Universal Health Services (UHS), a Fortune 500 company that offers hospital and healthcare services throughout the United States, has partnered with Haskell and BLOX to leverage the nascent project delivery method called design, manufacture, construct (DMC) to meet its need for speed to market.
“When you’ve got what a year ago was just flat farmland that now has 3,000 homes on it, those people need healthcare,” said Riley Yeaman, the Haskell Senior Project Manager on the FSED program. “It’s just like a fire department. When you have so much new housing and an exploding community, they have to be able to provide those essential services quickly. So, if you can build as FSED in six months rather than in a year, that's six months of emergent healthcare that people wouldn’t have had.”
DMC delivery maximizes efficiency by creating replicable modular building components in a controlled manufacturing setting, then shipping them intact to a job site where they are assembled, or “stitched,” before the facility is finished as would be a traditionally constructed building. Onsite, a reduced crew size and shorter schedule produce numerous benefits, including added safety, efficiency, and improved sustainability.
Understanding what comes next
Few industries were affected more significantly by the COVID pandemic than healthcare. In the early days of the outbreak in the U.S., most systems halted elective procedures and nonessential services, creating revenue shortfalls.
Recognizing the challenges, Haskell focused on anticipating what would come next. For instance, while healthcare providers might have had limited control over revenues, they did have control over expenses and could consider solutions to maximize existing opportunities.
As such, healthcare systems sought operational efficiencies. Strategic planning is key to managing potential disruptions, such as decreased patient volume or an exploding demand for telemedicine, and taking advantage of opportunities, such as leveraging technology in the patient experience or using data collection and analysis to identify expense savings.
That isn’t to say the industry won’t need more bricks-and-mortar projects. But these capital investments likely will come in the form of intricate, specialty care facilities that serve necessary in-patient procedures and life-saving interventions.
That’s where Haskell is positioned well by its vast and varied experience.
“Building a medical office building is not the same thing as building a critical-care tower, and Haskell is not a medical office building developer,” Allnutt said. “We have the planning, design, engineering and construction resources to do the most complex healthcare expansions, and you can see that in projects that we’re engaged in now.”
What won’t change will be the industry’s commitment to bettering its patients’ lives, and the leaders of Haskell’s healthcare practice understand the gravity of that mission.
“Everything we do has meaning,” Meek said. “It’s not building a condo, and it’s not building a warehouse or a factory. We are working on a place that literally changes people’s lives – children are born, and people survive cancer. It’s rewarding work that I’m proud of.”
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