Challenging the Need to Build With Operational Improvements

The Problem

During the master plan work, the desire to expand the ED and the actual need were tested to determine if they could mitigate construction through operations.

The Approach

We ran four data-driven scenarios to evaluate the impact of operational decisions on overall facility size and cost. Improved operations assumptions were centered around reducing average length of stay (ALOS) and addressing psychiatric patient needs through a dedicated behavioral health pod. We could show a reduced need for treatment rooms by approximately nine spaces by improving operations and by an additional six spaces by siphoning urgent care volumes down the street.

The Solution

We demonstrated the reduction in project size resulting from these initiatives lowered the project cost by almost $7 million.