By Healthcare Facilities Today

The Affordable Care Act, an aging population living longer with chronic conditions, increased health system consolidation, rapid technological advances and the ever-evolving delivery of care model, are creating an uncertain picture of what the healthcare facility of the future will look like, according to a blog on the Medical Construction and Design website.

With an increased focus on wellness and chronic care versus episodic and sick care, the shape of facilities is fluid, the blog said. One possibility is that hospitals will be leaner health centers that just happen to have inpatient beds. They will be a point on the continuum of care, not the sole focus. The industry will see an evolution to a more diversified real estate portfolio that includes a large percentage of assets in medical office buildings, ambulatory care centers, specialty care centers and home care delivery. 

"It used to be that “satellites” were smaller versions of the system flagship and services were duplicated in a hospital-centric model. This model is changing and providers are beginning to re-think the role of the community hospital, while taking advantage of system synergies to reduce operating costs and increase quality.Integrated delivery systems are beginning to transform into wellness systems with distributed networks that focus less on episodic care and more on how best to manage the health of populations. The incentives will be fewer high-cost hospital stays and improved population health."

There will always be the need for large, complex, regional and academic tertiary care medical centers, but the majority of the hospitals that consumers utilize in the future will be smaller community facilities that are surrounding themselves with ancillary and complementary services, either on or off-campus, the blog said

Read the blog.