News Flash: Healthcare Building Boom Slowing Down
Did we really think this would go on forever? The latest stats coming out of Modern Healthcare’s annual Construction & Design survey, as well as data from the American Society for Healthcare Engineering and Reed Construction Data/RSMeans indicate that the industry is still in a “major construction mode,” but that a slowdown is expected after 2010.
Is this news to any of us? Construction booms come and go, but the reality is that in healthcare, the factors affecting the need for new or renovated facilities are not going away in the near future. These include obsolete/aging facilities, technological advancements that affect how care is delivered, and the aging of the baby boom generation.
Urban sprawl and as well as the reverse in some areas, where new condos, town homes, apartments are attracting empty nesters back to the city, are also creating a demand for new healthcare services and facilities.
The pace of building is not going to continue at the growth rates of the past few years, but there is still plenty of building going on. Modern Healthcare reports that 2,561 projects were started last year with a projected cost of $38.4 billion and 3,920 projects were in the design phase with a projected cost of $72.2 billion. True, these numbers are slightly lower than the same measures in 2006, which is why some experts are raising the caution flag — as they should.
Quality, safety, environmental responsibility are “social movements” that are sweeping across healthcare — and we are far from solving all the problems. As long as we continue to make the case that facility design can contribute to improvements in each of these areas, the need for new construction will not diminish. Maybe slow down, but not diminish.