The COVID-19 pandemic has required health care institutions to take extraordinary steps to protect the safety of patients and staff, including significant adjustments to their operations and care models that prioritize infection control and containment. Facility capital planning has been impacted by decreased revenues. Investment decisions must generate returns against new criteria, including changing requirements for safe patient flow and throughput, patient/caregiver interaction, and logistics protocols and processes. 

As we look out to the near future, institutions and their designers need to focus on the following goals: 

1. The safe restoration of services; 
2. Maintaining services during future surges; and 
3. Planning greater resiliency into new and current projects. 

Each institution is different, but our Path Forward framework is a lens through which the spectrum of potential facility interventions can be assessed and prioritized. This is a living document that will be adapted to integrate industry-best practices with the needs of specific facilities as we move through and beyond this crisis.

SmithGroup’s Path Forward in Health Care.