Reason #2: Maximize Construction Days
6 Important Considerations When Planning A Hospital Or Clinical Care Unit Move
This is the second of a six-part series on how having an external expert as your partner can make the entire process of moving or renovating your clinical space easier from start to finish. As you’ll learn, a move manger is not a moving company -it’s much, much more.
By Fina Santiago, Vice President
In this series, we’ll discuss some of the common issues and considerations a hospital or clinical care unit experience when transitioning to a new space. Even a small one. From managing details, stakeholders, and construction time, to communication and to minimizing stress, this series offers informative suggestions to make your hospital or health care unit move a smooth and successful transition.
Reason #2: Maximize construction days.
During any renovation or relocation project, you have two very different agendas happening simultaneously. Your hospital staff is rightfully concerned with maintaining patient care. Your construction team has a phased process that needs to happen as quickly as possible to finish your new or renovated space by the open date.
If you’re the internal project manager, you need to run interference, speak to everyone’s concerns and coordinate the steps involved in construction—all without affecting patient care.
Coordination of all departments is key to success
That requires a plan that will ensure your service continuity, not only while the construction is happening, but also during the actual move. Suffice to say, if yours is a hospital project, the plan must include appropriate internal departments to make sure all bases are covered. Everything needs to happen in coordination with everything else. Details matter, because your construction project could easily affect patients’ needs. That’s why it’s important to have someone on the project team that can coordinate all internal and external impacts to the project.
Engage resources that can manage super-tight deadlines
The best implementation plan can ultimately accommodate more construction days if you have the resources on your team that know how to execute with super-tight timeframes. For example, when the space scheduled for renovation is vacated faster, it means the construction team can get started sooner. It’s that simple…and that complex!
Be sure your plan captures every interaction the patients and caregivers will encounter and outlines the implementation that will deliver a seamless transition. Communication is key. The chief cause of frustration during a project is poor communication. As noted before, being able to communicate in the difference “languages” of the various departments, contractors and vendors – even patients and their families – involved is essential. Clear communication removes doubt, fear, and frustration.
For the project manager, the need to make every day count, particularly construction days, can be daunting. Consider engaging with an outside resource to make this transition the best it can be. An experienced move manager not only brings a set of honed capabilities to your team but can also work closely with the construction team to provide answers and resolve issues that otherwise cause delays.
I hope you can see why hiring an experienced move manager is one of the smartest things you can do when it’s time to start a new renovation or relocation project in your hospital or other clinical space. Their benefit to you – and everyone in your organization—is to feel less stress during the process.
