HEALTHCARE PLANNING SYSTEMS
‘Common language’ needed for better hospital planning
Speaking at the International Federation of Healthcare Engineering’s 2022 Congress in Toronto, IHEEM’s CEO, Pete Sellars, and President, Paul Fenton, argued that the planning and construction of ‘siloed’ hospitals ‘is over’. Their key point was that ‘the way we measure hospital workload is outmoded – what matters now is the wider health and social care system: there is no such thing as a good hospital; there is only a hospital that is good for the system’. They presented a very different model for future healthcare planning.
Pete Sellars and the then IHEEM President, Paul Fenton MBE, delivered their message on the need for a major shift in thinking on healthcare planning in an hour-long opening keynote address, titled ‘A common language for planning and design of new hospitals’, on the first morning of the 27th IFHE Congress, which took place from 17-21 September at the Westin Harbour Hotel in Toronto. When I spoke to the IHEEM CEO a few days later, he admitted that they had initially not been sure – given the potential language barrier, with delegates attending from many countries where English is not the first language, and with very different clinical and estates practices and terminologies employed worldwide – how clearly their message would resonate.
A fantastic response However – as it transpired – they had a ‘fantastic response’. Following the presentation, they were approached by ‘a steady stream’ of delegates from as far as field as Australia, Brazil, South Africa, and the US. All these personnel – ranging from EFM professionals to surgeons – were keen to discuss with them their ideas on how current healthcare planning practice requires a serious re-think if future
hospitals are to be fit for purpose. Many of those they spoke to were keen to take back the ideas to their own countries for discussion with policy-makers and peers. Pete Sellars’ and Paul Fenton’s key
message – which has been the focus of discussion over the past two years for a Working Group made up of academics, healthcare personnel, architects, healthcare planners, and IHEEM members that Peter Sellars first brought together in 2021 to address the issue – is a simple one, but will require overcoming some complex challenges to implement. The premise is that current healthcare planning methods are deeply flawed. In particular, the Working Group believes, there is an over- emphasis when planning new hospitals on their capital costs, with insufficient consideration to their through-life costs, or to the revenue implications of designing them so that they are able to ‘flex and adapt’ to changing healthcare demands and trends, and emerging technologies. Equally – the Group argues – healthcare facilities need be designed and planned using acuity and the optimal patient care pathways for the local population as they key determinants of the clinical care services provided. The hospitals’ overall value to the wider healthcare system also
needs to be afforded higher priority, they argue. Currently, the Group’s members feel, many NHS acute hospitals operate as ‘silo’ units, with little regard to their contribution to the wider healthcare ‘system’.
Developing a ‘common language’ It was against this this backdrop that Pete Sellars and Paul Fenton delivered their address. In it they outlined the work that IHEEM has already done – jointly with the European Health Property Network (EuHPN) and University College London’s Bartlett School of Architecture – on the development of a new healthcare planning model that brings together hospital masterplanning, design, and operational management, based around three key elements: n Acuity – Using Acuity to determine the clinical care services provided.
n Using System-Wide Economic Modelling when planning new healthcare facilities, rather than ‘traditional’ m2
capital
costs, to determine the benefits of the investment.
n Using an Integrated Health Planning Framework – through ‘a common language to facilitate dialogue’ between stakeholders and decision-makers.
Paul Fenton (pictured left) and Pete Sellars delivered their presentation on ‘A common language for planning and design of new hospitals’ to an international audience at the 2022 IFHE Congress in Toronto.
November 2022 Health Estate Journal 23
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