Bill Geerlings C.Eng FIHEEM FIHEA BHA (NSW), director, Capworks Management (Victoria) Pty, discusses the role of end users in health facility developments. This article originally appeared in The Australian Hospital Engineer, the magazine of the Institute of Hospital Engineering Australia and is published in HEJ through IHEEM’s links with the International Federation of Hospital Engineering.
Drawing on my experience as a project director and facilities director of teaching hospitals in Victoria and Queensland, Australia, I will examine the need for end user involvement in health facility redevelopments if these are to be really successful. I will also examine the strategies and structures for optimising their contribution during the planning, design, commissioning and handover phases of major projects.
First we need to agree on what constitutes a successful project. Without getting lost in a jungle of semantics, I suggest that a successful project is one that meets not only the client’s traditional expectations of time, cost and quality, but also meets the client’s corporate needs. The latter is a vital but not always appreciated distinction.
In a previous paper (Geerlings W., Key Determinants of Successful Projects, Proceedings of the International Federation of Hospital Engineering Congress, Bergen, Norway, 2002), I have identified a number of determinants for successful health facility development projects. They include:
Whole life design.
Patient focused design.
Non-adversarial relationships.
Effective leadership.
Proactive cost planning.
Timely and comprehensive handover planning.
The need for end user involvement in the design process
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