For several years, healthcare players across the board have been feeling the momentum toward outpatient care. With so many new ASCs being built in recent years, architecture and construction firms are noticing the trend, too.
Stephanie McDaniel, president and CEO of Minneapolis-based architecture firm BWBR, told Grand Forks Herald in a Feb. 14 report that she's noticed hospitals are becoming more focused on outpatient care and less on inpatient care.
Healthcare organizations are ramping up efforts to build specialty hospitals and ASCs away from their main hospital campuses, the report said.
"It is certainly something we've seen for a while, but continues," McDaniel said. "It allows them to focus on the acute care of their main campuses."
A third of building designers said they are also seeing trends toward soft materials and shapes that foster a sense of well-being, the report said.
Healthcare projects have to grapple with the same problems any construction faces today. Trent Stone, owner of Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Stone Group Architects, told Grand Forks Herald that supply and demand issues are chief among them.
"I would say the biggest trend that we're seeing right now is just a slowdown of delivery of raw material and increased cost of raw materials and labor," he said.