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5 Steps to develop a Hospital Masterplan

Objectives

Koah is working with a Major Private Health Care provider to develop Hospital Masterplans across a portfolio of Private Hospitals in South East Queensland. Koah developed and implemented the strategic approach to Masterplanning, is progressively developing business cases and will lead development of Masterplans for each of the Hospitals. The Hospital Masterplans will support our clients Business Objectives and will become the foundation of a number of business and capital processes including;

  • Interpreting Clinical Services and Strategic Planning into facilities requirements
  • Identifying Opportunities and Constraints relevant to future development of the Hospital Precincts
  • Exploring alternative Models of Care and Business Models – future proofing facilities for evolving business needs
  • Underpin rolling Capital Planning
  • Enabling development of Staging and Implementation Strategies which align to the Capital Plan and Operational needs
  • Support development of Strategic Asset Management and Maintenance Plans

The Challange

Health Care and Hospitals are very dynamic environments. Care needs to be taken when introducing ad hoc projects which are not core business not to overwhelm stakeholders who are very busy and focused on Clinical Services Delivery and Hospital Operations. Some of the key challenges we have encountered when overlaying capital planning process on operational hospital teams include;

  • Managing Cultural Change – Masterplanning is forward looking and by definition involves disruption of the ‘status quo’.
  • Dynamic Clinical and Operational Models – The nature of Health Care is rapidly changing.
  • Delivering within Operational Budgets – Whilst hospital operators generally understand and support masterplanning, fitting this ad hoc expenditure within operational budget constraints can be a challenge
  • Overloading Staff and Leadership – running hospitals and delivering clinical services is demanding, how do we find time to support the Masterplans
  • Briefing – getting everyone on the same page and managing expectations

Koah’s Approach

To help simplify the percieved complexity surrounding the Masterplanning process we developed the simple phased approach above as a ‘Road Map’ to translate our client’s Business and Clinical Objectives into Facilities Outcomes. We are using this roadmap as a communication tool and framework to guide developing the Hospital Masterplans. This Roadmap forms the basis for key Masterplanning Processes and Deliverables such as;

  • Master Schedule Phasing
  • Business Case Development and Refinement
  • Stakeholder engagementConsultant Team Briefing
  • Progressive and Flexible Engagement Co
  • Parallel tracking of work streams and phases

We’ve found this simple communication tool and flexible delivery framework has had a big impact helping unravel perceived complexity by enabling a consistent approach to deliverables and clarity for stakeholders each step of the way.

  • Consistency
  • Clarity
  • Flexibility
  • Purpose

If you want to know more or adapt this process to help with your own unique challenges, get in contact using the links below.

Koah – Simplifying Complexity

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Koah appointed to help Uniting Care’s Hospital Portfolio

Uniting Care Queenland has appointed Koah to lead a consultant team to develop Preliminary Facilities and Services Masterplans for each of it’s Hospitals which will both enable UCQ’s overarching business strategies and interpret health services defined in the draft clinical services plans into functional plans.

UnitingCare Health is one of the largest not-for-profit private hospital groups in Queensland and is a service group of UnitingCare Queensland (UCQ). The hospital group is a major provider of healthcare services in Queensland which operates more than 1,000 licensed hospital beds and employs over 4,100 people.

UnitingCare deliver a range of specialist healthcare services out of four unique hospitals, across South East Queensland including the Wesley Hospital and St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital in Brisbane, ​Buderim Private Hospital on the Sunshine Coast and St Stephen’s Hospital in Hervey Bay. In 2018 the group of hospitals admitted just under 125,000 Queenslanders and performed more than 88,000 surgical procedures.

The Preliminary Masterplans will assist UCQ develop and refine it’s strategic business and clinical and strategies and will be used as a basis for a number of key activities leading into the FY19/20 capital planning cycle including

  • Review existing hospital facilities, assets and service infrastructure identifying opportunities and constraints for future growth
  • Identifying and agreeing preferred base-case development scenarios for each of the hospitals
  • Mapping existing property tenures such as leases and strata titles which may influence or constrain future Master planning, Health Services
  • Developing Initial Business Case/s for Detailed Masterplans and subsequent design processes exploring alternative Models of Care and Growth Strategies
  • Further refinement of Strategic Plans for each of the Hospitals and development of Specialty and Departmental plans
  • Staging and Implementation Strategies for facilities expansion required to achieve Clinical and Strategic Plans
  • Developing Capital Cost Estimates and Cashflows forecast to assist with Capital Planning

The Preliminary Masterplans will also be used as the basis for future design studies and development such as developing final (detailed) masterplans and subsequent design for each hospital.

Koah – Better Capital Delivery

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The control paradox – how a culture of control can paralyse programs (and your business)

Frameworks traditionally constructed to deliver projects and programs are all about control. As programs grow in scale and complexity, so increases the anxiety about mistakes and rigour of control frameworks implemented to manage risk.

The primary objectives of traditional risk based Control frameworks are to avoid mistakes mistakes, to stop things going wrong.

The problem with this approach is that is it based on fear. The fear of poor outcomes, the fear of wasting money or just simply getting it wrong

While control is essential to successful programs, a culture of fear is not

At Koah, we believe great project and program outcomes come down to people and teams. Groups of people working well together to deliver great outcomes

We think a culture of control (and fear) is not a natural or productive environment for people. We believe people are at their best when they are trusted and enabled to get and supported when things don’t got to plan

So we want to flip the narrative, and develop frameworks which enable things to go right.

We know that if our people and teams do the right things, then great outcomes will follow.

Our model is to increase teams freedom to do the right things, rather than placing controls stoping them from making mistakes. While this may seem seem a little counter intuitive at first, we understand that with freedom comes responsibility. We build cultures in our capital delivery teams that not only foster control but which values and enables Trust, Creativeness, Collaboration, Courage, Learning and Improvement

We believe that putting people first and design our Program and Project deliver frameworks to enable people to be their best will improve outcomes for your capital programs and your business


Koah – People, Teams, Outcomes