For many healthcare facility directors, capacity planning presents a very real, challenging and ongoing issue.

Departmental Growth, Repurposing a Short-Term Solution

Rapid departmental growth has become common within healthcare. A popular solution — one that often initiates a chain-reaction of similar capacity planning challenges — has become “repurposing.” Repurposing refers to utilizing space for a different function than originally intended.

As growth continues, repurposing reaches a limit — facilities eventually run out of physical space to repurpose. Expansion either through renovation or new construction must be considered. It’s at this point that management should include consolidating support services as a factor in determining how to best utilize their capital investment resources.

Healthcare Supply Chain and Crowding

Renovation can efficiently address a capacity planning problem and is historically much cheaper than new construction, but the wrong adjacency can create a pricy problem. A Director of Construction at a healthcare facility shared that the hospital’s laboratory had, over time, grown into a bad place — in the middle of prime clinical space.  The hospital faced a decision to spend about $1,000 per square foot to renovate the space, or relocate the lab to a facility off-campus for a fraction of that cost.

For facilities with unfavorable internal adjacencies, taking a new approach to their healthcare supply chain management via consolidation of support services may prove to be the best option. Grouping support services in one off-site facility can be a smart move for land-locked hospitals facing capacity planning issues. Consolidation of support services presents a multi-faceted solution for hospital capacity planning: 

• Facilities get the needed additional space at a lower cost-per-square-foot. 
• Consolidating support services in an off-site location optimizes the use of prime clinical space for patient care. 
• Consolidating support services introduces efficiency and cost savings into healthcare supply chain management. 

A New Era of Accountability in Healthcare

The new era of accountability in healthcare requires hospitals to strategically consider core service functions and mission instead of outdated notions of having everything under one roof. Creative solutions can provide administrators with more options and greater flexibility when handling capacity issues. In order to make the most cost-effective and appropriate decision for their specific facilities, organizations must find a solution–focused capital projects partner willing to deliver tailored in-depth options to solve specific facility capacity planning issues. 

For more information, contact Haskell Division Leader – Healthcare Construction, Mark Allnutt.