The Client Needs

Health care projects require a clear understanding of the needs in order to establish a brief.  The client might be one central organisation or a large number of departmental heads and representatives.

This needs special Client Management skills to bring out all the real needs, evaluate the options and provide a clear direction to proceed.

The design and construction of a health care facility does not start from a blank sheet of paper and sketch design. A great deal of preparation is required to ensure business and operational success.

HPI staff have many years of experience in dealing with complex, multilayered client organisations and the preparation of robust Feasibility studies and Business Cases.

  Briefing

Briefing (or Functional Program) is a highly specialised field. Unlike commercial or residential  projects where the client usually has sufficient skills to provide a clear brief, in health care facilities, usually no single representative of the client has the sufficient range of skills to  provide a detailed brief for the various building components from Bedrooms to Operating Rooms and from Radiotherapy Bunkers to Sterilising.

HPI's skill is in translating the client's service plan and the various 'wish lists' of components into a set of  coherent, consistent and medically workable briefs. There is one briefing document for each building component subdivided into individual departments. The scale of  information gathering and recording is vast. HPI uses its web-based database technology known as the Health Facility Briefing system to produce standards-based but customer focussed briefs accurately and rapidly.

  Design

Armed with the brief ,HPI’s health care Architects  design the buildings according to the master plan. The departmental plans closely follow the needs previously established in the brief and the KPU’s in the Service Plan.

In this area, again there is usually more than one way of achieving the result with slightly  different emphasis in the method of operation and staffing. These aspects are checked and decided with the client representatives.

HPI will assist the client representatives in their  decision making by providing sample patterns for the planning of each department using actual built buildings. All design work from the outset is carried out using the full implementation of CAD/ BIM in a combination of 2D and photo-realistic 3D.

  Health Service Planning

Service Planning starts with the Needs Analysis for health services within a defined population catchment. The raw demand is calculated based on the population characteristics, Clinical Specialities and Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG’s). These are converted into Key Planning Units (KPU’s) which represent the quantities such as Inpatient Bed, Operating Room, Intensive Care and Emergency Treatment Bay numbers required.

Deducting the health services supply within the catchment will determine the gap in the services which can be met by a new or expanded facility, forming the client’s Business Case for development.

Statistical Data Analysis is combined with Planning skills to  identify several directions to proceed. The  client is guided all the way through the development of the service plan.

  Master Planning

At this stage some of the promising Strategic Plans are investigated in terms of physical  needs, global organisation of facilities and building components, environmental impact and cost and operational benefit.

At the end of a successful master planning stage, one  option will be chosen as the preferred option. Although all options are costed in order to assist with the decision making, the preferred option is costed in greater detail to form a target budget for any future building activities proposed.

The Master Plan should become an important historic document guiding the development of health care facilities over the medium to long term. The Master Plan will reflect the projection of future service demand (typically 10 to 15 years) by the addition of new building blocks and wings. These projections are derived from the Service Plan, including future KPU’s.

  Construction and Commissioning

HPI takes the project from design to the end of construction and beyond, including equipment and furniture scheduling and procurement, staff orientation and Operational Policy Development.