This blog discusses the significant transformation the healthcare industry is undergoing. Market dynamics, health system consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, payment reform, technological advances, and changes to care delivery are all reshaping its function.
How Changes in Healthcare Impact Facilities Management and Capital Planning
The healthcare industry is experiencing rapid advancement. Increasingly, healthcare organizations are delivering patient care and facilities management in new ways. As the industry shifts toward value-based population health, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) continue accelerating, creating mega-sized, nontraditional health systems. Meanwhile, the industry continues to grapple with rigid compliance regulations and pressure to enhance the patient experience, improve financial performance, and increase everyday efficiencies.
As a disruptor in capital planning, facilities management, and the built environment, we know the value of staying on top of developing issues. Here, we discuss how healthcare trends will impact facility management.
The Healthcare Physical Environment
Recently, there has been an increased focus on preventative care and wellness versus episodic and sick care; therefore, the future of health facilities is fluid. This raises questions regarding future capital improvement projects at healthcare facilities. What does the future hold for our healthcare delivery systems and facilities, and how can hospitals and health systems plan for this unknown?
Healthcare providers’ core assets, Hospitals, will most likely be slimmed down into health centers with inpatient beds and may become a point on the spectrum of care delivery rather than the single point of care. This trend is predicted to continue with more outpatient-like health centers and an increased focus on more diversified capital and real estate portfolios, including assets in medical office buildings, ambulatory care centers, specialty care centers, and home care delivery.
Mergers and Acquisitions in Healthcare
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are creating mega health systems, cross-industry collaborations, and new approaches to commercial real estate. This indicates a greater need for strategic health facility capital planning. Hospital consolidation has steadily increased in recent years. Mergers and never-before-seen cross-industry collaborations with pharmaceutical companies, faith-based organizations, and nontraditional healthcare players continue to impact the healthcare industry.
Many large healthcare systems are creating their own insurance companies to combat the reduction of reimbursements from large insurance companies. Consolidation is making some of the largest systems in the country, along with new kinds of healthcare organizations involving healthcare providers, payers, retailers, pharmaceutical and device companies, and other players.
Hospital-acquired Infections Remain a Problem: Facilities Can Lead the Charge Against Them
Although progress has been made in preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that one in 25 hospital patients acquires at least one HAI.
According to the CDC, the physical environment is fourth on the list of HAI causes. While HAIs from treatment-related causes are decreasing, HAIs resulting from the environment of care may not be. Hospitals and healthcare facilities must consider how they can improve the design, maintenance, and management of facilities—from ventilation systems to room décor—to reduce infection risks.
Yet, preventing HAIs can become significantly more complicated when multiple sites and assets are involved. Further, not all organizations can ensure communication and transparency between the facility’s lead infection prevention and its facilities management director. With customized viewing for various roles, automated rules, configurable reports, and openness from end-to-end, an integrated facilities solution can become vital to preventing HAIs.
Data-driven Decision-making in Healthcare Facilities
The accessibility of data—and the means to store, process, and analyze it—drives decisions everyone makes in business today, particularly those in healthcare facility operations management. Often, the biggest challenge is to find the most efficient, cost-effective ways to capture and report on data for the facility's day-to-day operations.
This often involves a data-driven facility management solution that enables facilities managers to effectively leverage data to track required compliance-based inspections, inspect physical assets, report on facility maintenance issues, and continuously update plans and budgets for accurate spending projections.
An integrated assessment, capital planning, and facility management tool, such as The FOUNDATION Solution, can help healthcare finance and facility managers effectively analyze data and manage operations budgeting and capital planning.