Facility Strategies Can Help Healthcare Organizations Compete
May 8, 2013
Today's tip of the day from
Building Operating Management: Facility strategies can help healthcare organizations compete.
Competition is pushing hospitals and health systems to be more efficient in their services while, at the same time, more patient-focused by making services convenient, says Brian Crimmins, vice president, facilities planning and development at Crozer-Keystone Health System in Pennsylvania.
"The days when hospitals just sat back and said, 'When you're sick, come here' are over," Crimmins says.
The current moment in health care is one of transition, from the hospital in-patient model to an ambulatory outpatient model.
"The hospital will become the place where only the sickest of the sick will end up because of the intensity of the services they'll need," Crimmins says.
Anthony Salvatore, director of facilities services at Taylor Hospital and Springfield Hospital, who also sits as a representative on the national board for the American Society of Healthcare Engineers, sees the trend will be more branching out into the community. "We're looking at more outpatient services, more outpatient facilities," he says. "So the idea that these places are going to be strewn around the county is going to continue to grow." A strategy being considered is putting all of the ambulatory sites under the supervision of a single facility director or under the property management department to help keep things from falling through the cracks.
When Crimmins looks to the next five to 10 years, he sees a continuation of tuning the healthcare facilities portfolio to meet the needs of the customers. As inpatient numbers continue to fall at the hospitals, some of the spaces might be converted to outpatient purposes. Some of the smaller ambulatory sites will be consolidated into larger sites, where you can get more critical mass and gain some staffing and operations efficiencies.
"It all goes towards finding the most cost-effective way to deliver the highest quality of care," he says.
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