May Program Recap: Clients Talk Back: Healthcare Resiliency And Emergency Preparedness In Triangle Hospitals
Posted by Communications on May. 13, 2022 / Program Recap / Subscribe 0
Preparing to be Prepared with our Local Hospitals
It seems every one of us has been through a crash course in emergency preparedness over the last 2.5 years, living with a pandemic on our hands. Figuring out how to keep our families, friends, and colleagues safe and healthy has been, and continues to be, paramount to us all. That has been made all the more challenging by dealing with emerging COVID variants, navigating through an abundance of changing information and regulations, global conflicts, an extremely volatile economy, disrupted supply chains and distribution, rising costs of living, and at one point—Target running out of toilet paper!
Try to imagine dealing with those same conditions at a hospital level while providing uninterrupted first-class care to the region, keeping patients and staff healthy, and managing existing facilities and resources to stay one-step ahead—it's an unbelievably daunting task, right? Luckily for all us in attendance at SMPS Triangle’s May program, we got to hear "straight from the horses mouth," how this effort has been managed. This fantastic panel discussion featured Dalton Sawyer (UNC Health Care), Matt Olson (WakeMed Cary Hospital), Scott Martin (Duke Health) and was expertly led by Heather Platt Gulledge of Dewberry.
In the true spirit of emergency readiness, the discussion jumped right into some challenging questions focused on how these local hospitals initially dealt with the pandemic, what the long term after-effects have been, and what we as the AEC community can do to help with emergency preparedness in the future.
Initial Pandemic Impacts
Unlike last month’s Final 4, there was general agreement between the Duke and UNC sides of the table for this program! They joined WakeMed’s assessment—one of the biggest challenges with the pandemic was that no-one initially knew what to expect or how long it would last. All three healthcare systems have done an amazing job in tackling this ever-changing emergency and, in their own words, “have thrown everything at it." It was fascinating to hear how all three came together to learn from and support each other through the most challenging of times, something we have seen our AEC industry try to mirror as we search for new ways of collaborating to deliver best value results. Also discussed—the speed with which the pandemic came upon us, and the length of time it has stayed, was unlike any prior emergency situation we have seen. Throughout this time Plan A has always been focused on saving lives, while less time has been available to look at longer term Plan B and C—facility strategies.
Longer Term Impacts
As Dalton Sawyer noted, "Managing hospital facilities through the pandemic has been more of a marathon effort than a sprint." Trying to incorporate changing regulations in facilities that were at times inflexible for change, has resulted in many challenges in the day to day running of our healthcare facilities. The tragic human cost of the pandemic is well known. But in addition, there are other ongoing impacts such as rising facility costs and inefficiencies as well as the challenging mental health after effects of the last 30 months. We all have the opportunity to help with change going forward.
Opportunities for the AEC Community to Help with Facility Resiliency and Emergency Preparedness
So. How can we in the AEC industry help our healthcare clients with their future efforts in resiliency and preparedness? Earlier collaboration with user groups to understand operational risks and challenges is key. Helping our clients look beyond Day 1 facilities and incorporate into design and construction the need for flexibility and lower cost future adaption is another lesson-learned from the past 2+ years. Another hot priority, a focus on standardization in design and push for the use of modular systems. It is also critical to recognize that there is a need to look at how we can do “more with less,” given the surging impact on construction costs in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The May panel discussion was a great way to recognize the amazing efforts our local hospitals go to every day in helping keep our communities healthy. We are incredibly lucky to have such fantastic care at our doorstep. All of us in the AEC community have the opportunity to be a part of helping Dalton, Matt, Scott, and all our healthcare clients continue in their goals of operational resiliency.
Sandy Gray, Preconstruction Director
Skanska USA Building, Inc.
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