With any leading medical technology, four constraints limit how successful the technology will be. The constraints are efficacy / applicability, target patient population, advancing technology, and cost of production. For example, the constraints on a 128-slice CT scan would be: its efficacy in its function toward its output, the patient population that can derive benefit from it,… [Read more…]
August 29, 2011
Not long ago I blogged about what I felt was an untenable situation for hospitals: blood supply. Since then, I have learned a bit more about blood due to a proposed merger of Florida’s three regional blood centers: Florida’s Blood Centers, Community Blood Centers of Florida, and Florida Blood Services. Together, they supply roughly 50% of… [Read more…]
August 26, 2011
Click here for my latest blog post for Healthcare Design magazine.
August 24, 2011
A charrette may be the most influential tool at a design team’s disposal. For those unfamiliar with what a charrette is, I will briefly define this important activity. Charrette is an architectural term for a short, intense design exercise. In school, it meant a furious individual effort to meet a project deadline. In the working world, it is more… [Read more…]
August 22, 2011
Car analogies are usually helpful. I was discussing design-build (DB) with an architect colleague who was playing devil’s advocate for design-bid-build (DBB). He said DBB was superior to DB because the DBB building price is “competitively derived” as opposed to design-build’s “non-competitive” arrangement. To him, design-build had some mystery in its sum that he could… [Read more…]
August 19, 2011
Some hospital administrators work decades to find a reliable design and construction team. No wonder when a team performs well more than once, that team can quickly find themselves a ‘preferred provider’ at the hospital. For the designer or builder, this is heaven. And for the Director of Facilities or VP of Strategic Planning, relief. The team trades off its… [Read more…]
August 17, 2011
Humans innately seek consistency. When a woman commits to something, we expect her to follow through. And if she doesn’t we are bothered, and look on her with skepticism for her lack of consistency. Or when a man says he is a strong supporter of the environment, we find it troubling if he drives around town in a gas-guzzling… [Read more…]
August 15, 2011
Simple is the distilled essence of complex. Everywhere in business complex is replaced by simple. In writing, editors say simple, clear writing is much more difficult to accomplish—and much more indicative of clear thought—than complex writing. It takes much more practice, understanding of message, and work to write something simply. In software, computer programmers denounce the overly… [Read more…]
August 12, 2011
Reading about the technology and buzz behind proton treatment reminds me a lot about the scene from It’s a Wonderful Life when Jimmy Stewart’s character is offered an exciting new job—’in at the ground floor with plastics’. At the time, it was a new industry and people had no way of knowing how ubiquitous plastics… [Read more…]
August 10, 2011
What does a healthcare facility do when it has maxed out its creativity in search of savings at its campus? After a hospital has built responsibly, and instituted sustainable initiatives like commissioning, campus-wide lighting and HVAC adjustment, and tapped out recycling—all of which offer substantial long-term savings—green energy may be a legitimate option. In Buildings magazine’s energy saving products… [Read more…]
August 31, 2011
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