Keyphrase: comprehensive healthcare design
Meta Description: Learn how comprehensive design strategies in healthcare facilities improve operational efficiency, enhance patient care, and reduce long-term costs by integrating frontline staff feedback during planning.
Comprehensive healthcare design is more than aesthetics—it drives functionality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction. Many common operational inefficiencies in hospitals stem from design decisions made without input from frontline staff. In this article, we explore how early-stage collaboration with facilities and environmental services improves outcomes.
Designing without considering day-to-day operations often results in costly inefficiencies. From Environmental Services closets to HVAC system access, these seemingly minor details play a massive role in hospital workflows. Integrating feedback from those who work within the facility ensures the design meets real-world needs.
Consider a standard inpatient unit. A single Environmental Services closet often supports the entire floor. If poorly located, cleaning delays can affect room turnover, leading to backlogs in ER and observation units. This directly impacts patient satisfaction scores—and ultimately, Medicare reimbursements.
When Environmental Services staff are invited into the planning process, their input ensures that essential spaces are sized and located properly. A closet that’s easy to access reduces delays and streamlines operations.
Facilities teams provide critical insights during the Owner Project Requirements (OPR) process. For example, relocating VAV (Variable Air Volume) boxes outside patient rooms avoids disturbing patients during HVAC maintenance. Placing equipment in accessible areas reduces safety risks and extends system longevity.
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
- Steve Jobs
When staff suggestions are recorded in the OPR document, it signals that their voices matter. Years later, those same technicians will appreciate being heard when they service systems that are easier and safer to maintain.
Comprehensive healthcare design doesn't just save time—it improves patient care. When designers collaborate with operations teams, the result is a facility that supports safety, functionality, and long-term success.
Wes Pooler | VP of Facilities Services, Pintail Solutions
Wes Pooler brings over 20 years of leadership in both for-profit and not-for-profit healthcare organizations. His work has spanned $150M+ in projects and includes acting as Operations Section Chief during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Contact: [email protected] | 207.660.5352
Internal Link: Learn more about our approach to OPR here.
External Link: How Medicare ties payments to quality scores →
Jason Bork is the President and Founder of Pintail Solutions, a management advisory firm helping organizations drive partner growth and deploy new business strategies. He also serves as Chief Operating Officer at the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation, where he advances initiatives that accelerate Alzheimer’s research. With more than 20 years of corporate leadership experience across R&D, project and alliance management, and client services, Jason has led global teams of nearly 400 people and guided organizations through transformative change. A graduate of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, he is known for his integrity-driven leadership, collaborative style, and passion for mentoring future leaders.
Pintail Solutions is a niche management advisory firm focused on enabling overall project and portfolio delivery, developing and deploying new business strategies, and delivering construction projects across life science organizations.
