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Challenge
The Lebanon VA Medical Center asked RCC to provide A/E and health care management consulting services for the following:
- Gathering and reviewing relevant data to verify and modify the current strategic plan while recommending spatial improvements to the healthcare delivery system
- Providing a plan for improving the location of all medical, surgical, long-term care, social, and administrative services at the medical center
- Presenting a preliminary framework for possible consolidation of service delivery from the existing complex into a replacement facility at the present site
- Identifying improvements for increasing performance measurements, increasing productivity, and reducing administrative costs
- Planning that will consider the impact of pending renovations/construction
- Identifying spatial alignment changes and improvements to support modifications in healthcare and administrative service delivery
- Exploring a possible replacement hospital option that compares costs of renovating existing space to new construction
Solution
We asked our strategic partner to assist us with this engagement. We understand that master plans are used to create critical road maps for the future of organizations. Our team and strategic partner have helped organizations develop master plans for many years. Our experience tells us that this planning can be a challenging, but necessary, process. We don't pretend to predict an absolute future, but we work as partners with our clients and their consultants using scenario planning to identify possible futures and possible courses of action to address those futures. Our knowledge tells us that crystal balls and historical workload projections alone will do little to identify the healthcare requirements of future patients at medical facilities. Our master planning process is broken into four key phases:
- Phase I: Process Methodology
- Phase II: Analysis and Assessment
- Phase III: Alternative Development Options
- Phase IV: Comprehensive Plan and Design Guidelines
Addressing these four key phases keeps the team focused on goals while creating a unique process and setting the course for the master plan.
Benefits/Outcome
Based on the healthcare forecast as well as the existing facility analysis, several key ideas or drivers led the functional planning and the final master plan concept for the Lebanon VA Medical Center. Some highlighted outcomes included:
- A new hospital replacement facility is necessary to meet the technological and spatial demands of the 4 key product lines: surgical, imaging, labs, and inpatient med/surg beds
- For improved efficiency and to create opportunities for shared support services between outpatient and inpatient product lines, the team decided a new primary care facility should be constructed adjacent to the new replacement facility with a common entrance
- The Plant Operations Building (POB), while still operational, will soon have reached the end of its life cycle and a replacement will be needed to support the new facility
- The minimum VA standards of care must be met or exceeded, inpatient bedrooms should be competitive with the industry trends
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