By Healthcare Facilities Today

Healthcare Design magazine's "Take Five" series asks healthcare design professionals about what’s got their attention. The magazine recently talked to Andrew Quirk, the senior vice president and national director of Skanska’s Healthcare Center of Excellence.  Quirk tallied about innovation and leadership and what the hospital of the future might look like. According to Quirk:

1. Innovation rules the day

Now more than ever, the healthcare industry is seeking new ways of thinking and doing. Healthcare providers that embrace innovation and demand it from their construction and design partners will be the ones to flourish in the new world of healthcare. actice. Everyone needs to push the limits of innovation to impart meaningful change in the industry.

2.There has to be a better way

Our industry is in need of leaders—thought leaders, leaders of change, and those who are brave, willing, and able to take risks to positively affect growth. 

3. Look beyond the immediate to whole-life cost

As the healthcare paradigm shifts, we need to look at our clinical care buildings in an entirely new way. Go beyond lifecycle cost analysis, where you look only at the physical asset, and instead evolve into whole-life cost analysis. 

4. Flexibility for operations sake

The facilities we’re planning, designing, and building must be flexible enough to adapt quickly to changes we don’t see yet. 

5. The new consumer 

The new consumer is not just the previously uninsured. It’s also the less (recently) talked about retiring baby boomers, women, children, and all other users of the healthcare industry. But what do they want?  My bet is on convenient, efficient, and higher quality delivery of care that’s technologically based. 

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