Key Takeaways:
Many healthcare facilities are always-on, life-saving systems for their patients and need to stay top-notch for staff and visitors as well. For facility managers maintaining an important space, any disruptions need to be properly prepared for.
Before embarking on an improvement project, facility managers should evaluate whether a vendor is a trusted advisor who understands the needs of your healthcare facility and the work it entails.
Start by asking, “Which partner provides the greatest defensible lifecycle value?” says Von Lambert, owner of Elevation Advisors. “My own vendor-selection framework … explicitly directs teams to consider total cost of ownership rather than upfront pricing alone.”
Evaluating a healthcare vendor means inquiring on their understanding of healthcare workflows, regulations, risk mitigation techniques, integrations, service support and more. Here's what to consider when finding a maintenance or work partner.
Don’t pick a vendor based on price alone, warns Lambert. The lowest-cost solution may not deliver what is needed of the project, in terms of safety, reliability, workflow, maintainability, patient experience or organizational outcomes, for example.
Identify the proper scope upfront, as opposed to having “hallway conversations,” says Michael Hatten, vice president of facilities engineering and construction at Memorial Hermann Health System. “There’s too little effort upfront of capturing technical requirements; and nailing down scope, budget and overall outcomes.”
Once bids are received, Hatten recommends putting an "expiration date” on healthcare project estimates. If a bid sits on the desk of a financial decision maker for too long, it can become obsolete from factors such as inflation rate or changes in hospital technology needs.
Questions to ask vendors:
It’s OK for facility managers to ask for assistance, explains Sean Mulholland. The former construction planning director, now U.S. Air Force Academy associate professor, says that if a project is large or complex and straining internal resources, hire a consultant.
“The ‘easy button’ is to always hire an architect, structural engineer or life safety engineer. You hire somebody with that competency that can come in very quickly and prepare a risk log and model risk in a pretty sophisticated way,” he explains. “As a facility director your time and day are split between so many different areas of priority; it becomes too much to do internally.”
Hatton echoes that, stating that the art of a project leader is knowing where you are on the continuum of risk, and creating contingency for unexpected items, such as what might come up with an older building, structural needs, regulatory changes, mid-project findings or changes and so on.
“Have enough dollars in the budget to plan time and money to finish on time and at or under budget,” he suggests.
Hatton and Mulholland presented about risk management in healthcare projects at the 2026 ASHE Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference, where they discussed types of risk that facility managers should plan for. They noted that the best-scoped project will have all three, plan separately but accordingly.
|
Type |
How |
Examples |
|
Known-Knowns |
You know they'll happen. |
ICRA, hot work, phasing, containment. Budget in your base cost, not contingency. |
|
Known-Unknowns |
You know they might happen, but not if or how much. |
Unforeseen conditions: Hidden MEP, scope changes, long leads, escalation. Build specific dollar allowances as line items in your forecast. |
|
Unknown-Unknown |
You can't anticipate them. |
Pandemic, structural failure, drastic reimbursement issues, general market conditions. Manage with your bottom-line general contingency. |
Questions to ask vendors:
Through the project, Hatton advises managers to lead from the front.
“You are busy, but take a risk of voicing something upfront, even if it’s unpopular,” he says. “There is going to be conflict, you need to have the courage to speak up. Delivering these projects at a top medical center involves managing egos. You need to make sure you are drawing out important information from stakeholders to get feedback as you go.”
Each group sees a different part of the risk, Lambert notes, so bring all departments and roles affected by the project into the conversation early to develop the functional program comprehensively, rather than simply treating it as a checkbox item.
Questions to ask vendors:
Not everything can be accounted for, but with the right stakeholder engagement, planning, timing and funding, the surprises will be fewer and farther between.
“You do not eliminate every error; you decide when you are going to find it,” Lambert says. “If the team finds a faulty assumption during planning, it is a manageable decision. If staff find it during activation, it is costly and disruptive. If a patient finds it after opening, it can become harmful.”
Valerie Dennis Craven is a freelance writer based in Plymouth, Minnesota.
