January | 2012 | Owner's Toolbox

Browsing All Posts published on »January, 2012«

HC Fraud Real Relief Valve for U.S.

January 30, 2012

Waste is a personal pet peeve of mine, so when I recently read Fast Company’s article “The $70 Billion Scam” my jaw hit the floor. Then I fumed. In light of the upcoming primary election (Florida’s is tomorrow), I reflected on the past few years of politics. So much energy has been put into healthcare reform, even before […]

The Cost of Delay

January 27, 2012

With his $22 million in loans in hand, an administrator I know was preparing for a major capital project. I introduced his somewhat recent situation in a previous post. His hospital project was approved and ready to take off. Fifteen months later, things are still waiting to break ground. This delay may not seem like a big deal. Or worse […]

Benefits of a Design-Build Veteran

January 26, 2012

Healthcare administrators often require significant experience in the project type of their upcoming project before considering a design and construction team. For instance, if a health system is doing a cancer center, it may insist on a team having five completed cancer centers in its portfolio. Such a requirement helps confirm a team will be less […]

Spheres of Influence

January 23, 2012

Architects have complained over the past thirty years that their significance in society—influence, status, importance—has diminished. This is largely true. I believe it has happened because of one concern: architects continue to push away risk. As architects began off-loading risk from their standard contracts decades ago and limiting services, (for instance, not accepting responsiblities and […]

Adjusting Expectations

January 18, 2012

Communication between two ordinary, random people can be difficult. Communication between two intelligent individuals who share a similar lexicon of industry language (jargon), background, are culturally similar, and who are also well-educated, can still be a big challenge. This is so primarily because the definition of words do not mean the same to everyone, and thus expectations from […]

Portrait of an Integrated Team

January 16, 2012

Eight weeks ago I had the good fortune of attending a presentation on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and the future of healthcare as envisioned by The Advisory Board, a healthcare consultancy and think tank. In an effort to show hospital administrators what an ideally-organized and high-performing healthcare team looked like, the presenter outlined some top attributes of […]

Hospitals: Work Sample Your HC Team

January 13, 2012

For sure, healthcare project partner selection is an emotional decision. Yet other industries struggle as well with the ability to choose talent. Interviewing is another surprisingly imprecise exercise of screening and selection. Google seeks creative problem solvers and tries to develop ways to screen for that in its prospective employee interviews. But an increasing body […]

Simulation Unlocks Project Value

January 11, 2012

My latest blog post for Healthcare Design can be read here.

Short List Interviews Anything But Predictable

January 6, 2012

College bowl season is in full swing again. For college football fans, bowl season offers a coda to the football season with a plethora of matchups, and a game almost every night between mid-December and the first week in January, culminating in a national champion. However, bowl game outcomes are notoriously hard-to-predict. For the casual […]