Hospitals and health systems placed a higher priority on improving IT systems and other infrastructure this year, according to a survey by Health Facilities Management magazine and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE).
About 1 in 4 of the 598 respondents to the survey reported that their organizations have building projects currently under construction, with 73% of those projects involving expansion and renovation. Many of the additions and modernization projects benefit emergency departments, imaging, surgery areas, and cancer centers.
More than a quarter of the responding hospitals said they were building service systems to accommodate electronic health records, and about 20% were either upgrading a data center or planning to do so in the near future. A third were replacing or upgrading air handlers or ventilation systems.
Green improvements also proved popular with respondents this year. Over two-thirds of the respondents said they specify green materials in most or all of their construction projects, and about 60% added that their organization evaluates the costs and benefits of green construction methods for projects.
