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HCA
Nashville, TN
(615) 344-9551
www.hcahealthcare.com
Providing high-quality, cost-effective healthcare through a best-in-practices philosophy, the nation’s leading provider of healthcare services continues its well-drafted design and construction approach with an aggressive building campaign. Presently, four new hospitals are under construction, and a multitude of other hospital expansions and renovations are under way.
Activities are directed through a core team of design and construction professionals in the organization’s Nashville headquarters; an integrated partnership between these folks and the network of directors of plant operations at each location (charged with on-site facilities management) support these efforts, so they reflect both the company’s core healthcare business and how facilities look and function, are maintained, and operated. HCA has made a serious commitment to life-cycle cost analysis and the benefits derived from that approach. In fact, during the design of every facility, the organization also requires future expansion plans in several key clinical areas (from the emergency room all the way through medical/surgical patient rooms).
Although each hospital maintains its autonomy as an independent profit center and legal entity, this corporate over-sight - performed by a relatively small group of talented professionals - can almost be likened to a consultancy. Think big-picture strategy and oversight as one aspect (the corporate side); tactical, local day-to-day operations as the other. It works - and works well - for HCA.
More recently, however, HCA has restructured its former design and construction department to better address oversight of key elements in HCA’s facilities plans. For instance, design work is now housed underneath the organization’s planning department - a strategic move that should more clearly focus the talents and energies of design professionals who have embraced the HCA guidelines, but who are also committed to creating “the hospital of the future.”
Look to this healthcare leader to drive innovation and shared services in the coming years. Collaborative input in all instances - of course.
