Healthcare construction delivery methods are becoming more innovative and integrative. Healthcare facilities are opting for healthcare project approaches that save time and money – both of which are critical in the healthcare industry.

Here’s a look at some of the top trends in healthcare construction:

Highly Integrated. Once siloed groups are coming together to create fully integrated and collaborative project teams where the owner, architect, and contractors are all working together throughout the entire construction process starting with the design phase. With all parties working as a unified team in close contact, rework is greatly reduced. This saves the project time and money and minimizes shutdown time and patient disruption which is of great importance in the healthcare environment.

Lean Approach. In an effort to be both sustainable and efficient, construction companies are implementing lean practices to deliver healthcare projects. Lean construction methods help reduce waste and increase overall project efficiency. This means the project can be completed faster, for less money, and with less waste.

Prefabrication. As part of the lean project approach, healthcare prefabrication is becoming more dominant in the industry. Prefabrication is especially powerful when it comes to complex, time-intensive work such as mechanical and plumbing. With prefab, mechanical racks and HVAC components can be assembled offsite more safely and more efficiently than they could be onsite. Once assembled, these prefabricated components are delivered and installed onsite. Prefabrication provides a huge value to healthcare facility owners who want to minimize both project cost and facility downtime.

BIM Modeling. With an integrated team, BIM models are shared with everyone involved in the healthcare project early on. Sharing the BIM models with all team members gets everyone on the same page. When changes to the mechanical or plumbing systems occur, the BIM model can be updated and everyone can have immediate access to the latest plans which allows for early clash detection.