BHC was among the sponsors for MetroWire Media’s 2023 Healthcare Summit, which featured a distinguished healthcare panel presentation made up of various professionals in the industry. Panelists included BHC Development Group Director Mark Sherfy, Director of Design & Construction Shawn Frost with Monument Healthcare Development, CannonDesign Vice President Brian Silva, Research Medical Center Chief Operating Officer Jessica Marin, and ADAMS Management Services Chief Executive Director Jeff Christmann.

The panel covered a wide range of topics including trends in the healthcare market, predictions on the future of medical expansion, how systems are making decisions based on their needs, and lessons learned that are making a positive impact on the healthcare industry.

Flexibility regarding how facilities are being used was identified as a trend due to the changes that came with the pandemic. Transforming the user experience across civil site design and architectural design layout has become an expectation as patients have been trained to think differently about their access to healthcare.

That leads to the topic of what the future of healthcare holds. Along with transforming the user experience, there are other challenges that come about when reaching the end goal. Mark Sherfy shared his thoughts on how decisions are being made by health systems based on their needs. There is great importance in understanding and utilizing the expertise of the wide range of design experts available to make any project as successful as possible.

“While sophisticated clients who’ve been doing this for a long period of time understand that there are going to be costs associated with a site, we’re also seeing new physician groups trying to build their first [development]. The education, bringing management teams, and development teams on board early in that process to do the due diligence and find the cost scope items before they get too far along is critical.”

Mark Sherfy, P.E., PTOE

The obvious challenges of inflation, access to capital, and workforce availability are still prevalent, but panel participants are hopeful these challenges are temporary. Among the lessons learned that are making positive impacts on the healthcare industry is the ability to help develop a wide variety of healthcare facilities related to different treatments.

With the changing times, we are seeing greater needs for facilities providing treatment for behavioral and mental health. A better understanding of the user experience will help us develop successful facilities equipped with specialized features to better serve patients. As civil engineers, our focus is not on any one particular type or size of healthcare facility use. Because of this, new opportunities for our services arise to benefit a wider range of users.

“I’d be remised to not talk about the opportunities we’re seeing in behavioral health and mental health. The statistics of mental health are not good right now. The anxiety and depression, trauma, substance abuse, all those things are escalated and the large hospitals really aren’t the best place to treat them.”

Mark Sherfy, P.E., PTOE

The event brought forth great discussion that’s important to keep in mind as we continuously aim to improve access to healthcare facilities and the user experience. We look forward to being part of future conversations that lead to action plans when considering how to best positively change and impact the industry.