Building Efficiencies While Working with/for the Federal Government and Private Healthcare Construction Space. #healthcareconstruction,#hospitals

Building Efficiencies While Working With/For the Federal Government Contractor and Private Healthcare Construction Space

?The following article provides insight into some of the best practices that healthcare-focused construction contractors are implementing in order to ensure they are best managing their resources to provide the optimal outcomes for all parties involved in a healthcare construction project. It also touches on how the Government and Private sector owners are beginning to view their projects with as much built in functional efficiencies as possible for the end user: the patient, their family, and healthcare providers.

?Even beyond basic construction needs, healthcare projects are significantly more complex than other construction projects. There’s an exhaustive list of elements and variables to consider when building in and around any medical facility.

?To manage both facilities needs/regulations and concern for patients and healthcare providers construction companies are consistently working hard to control quality, performance and cost to ensure project delivery and quality on healthcare construction projects.

?Healthcare construction is a highly regulated industry regardless of if a healthcare construction company is working?building healthcare projects for the government or in private industry.?The inherent nature of?healthcare construction means more regulations and design standards that need to be carefully evaluated and tested throughout design and construction. If contractors fail to deliver quality work, patients could suffer and costs increase and delays on projects occur.

?Inspections of medical facilities are more rigorous compared to other construction sectors. For contractors, this means that there is more scrutiny over the quality of their work and little tolerance for error. Each and every government healthcare facility either in DOD, the VA or NIH and private medical facilities needs to meet a different level of standards, cleanliness, and code depending on usage, patients, and staffing needs. Even the location of the facility means a whole new set of regulations, with the potential impact of thousands of varying federal, state and local codes. Both the government and private and public healthcare owners and contractors need to constantly stay abreast of changing regulations that impact construction.

?Failure of inspection of not meeting code, compliance, and safety regulations could mean substantial delays, increased costs to the VA, and government and healthcare facilities of all types.?Missing a scheduled opening for a facility by a day, a week, or a month could have a significant impact on both the patients who need these services but also on staff and integration of care for Veterans, active duty, research projects, and patients. Therefore, a regular system of checks and balances is necessary throughout design and construction for quality assurance.

?As such it is important to ensure that a healthcare construction contractor has deep past performance in working in and around hospitals and healthcare facilities to ensure that the government and private sector have a performing contractor to complete the work but also has the knowledge, experience and appropriate staff experience to work in such a rigorous and complicated field such as hospital and healthcare construction.

?Healthcare construction along with rules and regulations are constantly changing, and medicine continues to develop at a rapid rate. Tele-health can potentially render a dedicated diabetes clinic or another part of a hospital or facility practically obsolete overnight. This places pressure on contractors to deliver facilities quickly, as well as to build with the intention that reconstruction might be needed shortly down the road.

There needs to be a balance between the needs of patients with the various facility stakeholders involved. Ninety-five percent of facilities in the private sector report that both clinical and nonclinical staff are included in the design process, even before any healthcare construction begins.?If the construction process is not managed correctly, communications can be severely disjointed and cause project delays and unforeseen issues are likely to arise.