Capital Planning—The Foundation for Success in Healthcare

Effective and coordinated strategic planning and capital budget planning are the foundation for success in healthcare. Markets are dynamic, and an organization’s ability to react to this fluid environment is necessary to manage risk, allocate resources efficiently and plan for the long term. Capital planning in healthcare is the process of allocating, evaluating and managing funding for potential projects, investments, buildings, infrastructure improvements and the purchase of durable goods. Rising construction costs, limited capital and growing technology demands are putting serious pressure on healthcare systems to make smarter, faster investment decisions.

Learn how health systems can analyze, prioritize and determine what to fund to meet their organization’s current and future needs as members from The Center for Health Design’s Built Environment Network (BEN) share the process and best practices that were developed by multiple health systems across the country. The BEN is a collegial network of executive-level professionals dedicated to improving safety, quality and sustainability in healthcare. They will discuss the tensions that arise between funding projects that support the long-term strategy and the need to fund basic infrastructure needs and replacement of fixed and moveable equipment. Capital planning today, requires a more strategic and systematic approach. As more mergers and acquisitions occur and healthcare organizations move away from individual hospitals, there is a need for sophisticated real estate and construction departments and a process that includes the right data and partners to accurately predict costs, in order to prioritize and make better decisions for both the short and long term. And there must also be a defined organizational governance and approval process to be successful.