Facility Planning – Renovate,
Expand, or New Construction?
Capacity and space constraints are a constant challenge
for most hospitals. This results from a variety of factors
including increased community populations, nearby hospitals
closing, people using the ED in place of scheduling
an appointment with their family practitioner, and increased
patient care services being provided just to name a
few.
One of the biggest decisions when considering facility
design and planning is whether to renovate, expand,
or take on new construction. Using healthcare specific
simulation modeling can help determine which of these
paths is the right one for a given hospital and then
precisely quantify how large (space and capacity) the
renovation/expansion/new construction needs to be.
Often as we have helped build the appropriate models
for our Healthcare clients to make these decisions they
found that through specific process improvements, sufficient
increases in capacity or patient throughput were achievable
such that the facility expansion could be delayed or
cancelled all together. This was the case for planned
ED expansions at both Baystate and Miami Valley hospitals.
See the Project Reviews to read more on this topic.
However, when it is determined that additional space
or capacity is required, using simulation is complementary
to an architect’s process so that only the appropriate
amount of space is added, based on the most effective
patient flow processes put in place. It’s important
to design the facility in parallel with designing the
new processes and procedures to be performed in order
to prevent costly facility construction that doesn’t
achieve the desired goals.
The model shown (below) was built for an architectural
firm to illustrate the difference in one pre-and-post-op
design over another. It does this comparison by placing
both different designs in one model and causing the
exact same patient pattern to enter each design at the
same time. All model interactions are kept the same
so the only difference in the two sides is the actual
design. Any difference in the outcomes may be directly
attributed to the design difference.
The left or "A" side of the model is known
as the "single room" concept and the right
or "B" side is known as the open bay design.
There are the same number and conceptual use of PACU
I beds in each design. The "A" side has 27
dual designated pre-op and PACU II rooms. The "B"
side has 30 rooms but designates specific rooms for
pre-op and specific rooms for PACU II.
The model below is an example of how an architectural
CAD file can be automatically imported into ProModel
and be the basis for the physical layout of a facility
design.
