Plans Change but Planning is Essential
COVID-19 has disrupted the healthcare industry as we know it. Priorities have shifted, and teams are working tirelessly to ensure the health and safety of staff and patients. Most Capital projects have been placed on hold, but BDR is positioned to help facility leaders plan and prepare for a faster recovery.
To say that the crisis facing the healthcare industry ‘unprecedented’ is an understatement. Despite overwhelming uncertainty, health care providers and support staff have risen to the challenge of these ‘unprecedented times’ with bravery and decisive action. The long-term effects and reverberations of the crisis, though, are only starting to be understood. What is clear is that hospitals were faced with the twin shocks of curtailed revenues – with ORs shuttered, clinics closed, and procedures deferred – and increased costs – from increased PPE, additional staff, and specialty equipment such as ventilators.
With all focus on continuing to provide safe and effective care, understandably, planning for the future or even implementing already-planned initiatives has been upended. Perhaps you were mid-stream with a major facility improvement; perhaps you were preparing to launch a new service line. As an industry and as a global community we are living the phrase: ‘life’s what happens while you’re making plans.” But, while plans change, planning is essential.
Change is nothing new to the industry. Many have taken to labelling post-Covid-19 world as the “next” normal; acknowledging that the Coronavirus is only the latest of many changes to fundamentally affect the industry, and unlikely to be the last. In fact, a major objective of planning is to provide guidance even in the face of drastic or un-expected change. In the face of change a good strategic facility plan will:
Explore immediate solutions to issues even if those solutions are not facility related. Are there operational changes that could be implemented to increase the utilization of an existing asset?
Identify and preserve flexibility wherever possible. The plan should identify when major decisions need to be made (and when they DO NOT need to be made yet).
Acknowledge its own limits. Near-term projects can be planned in detail, and longer-term initiatives can be defined by their intent and objectives – making way for achieving those objectives while allowing for adaptation to future circumstances.
BDR specializes in collaborating with clients to deliver Strategic Facility Planning Services that look beyond facilities and get to the heart of your institution’s needs. To learn more, click below to download the full PDF version.
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