This year’s program present a series of keynotes, case studies, panels, and diverse networking opportunities designed for attendees to deepen their understanding on the value proposition behind different delivery models, and the role they can play in the delivery of essential healthcare infrastructure.

Our agenda has been programmed to help you plan and procure successful initiatives, understand best practices in selecting and negotiating with prospective partners, and take steps to ensure project success. 

Over 85 leading practitioners will present their firsthand observations of healthcare projects of all sizes in different markets.  We will also offer in-depth roundtable discussions for owner and public sector delegates with interest in discussing specific healthcare project issues in a more candid and interactive forum. 

Attendees with little experience in the development and operation of alternative delivery model will benefit from our industry experts presenting their knowledge, and valuable insights into market trends crucial for business decisions. More seasoned professionals will benefit from our incredible networking opportunities, cultivate relationships with project sponsors, and learn new methods to address complex project delivery goals. 

The agenda offers multiple daily breaks and specific events designed for you to meet with industry professionals, project sponsors/owners, and reconnect with old colleagues. 

With over 800+ participating delegates, attendees find the Healthcare Project Delivery Conference to be one of the most effective places on their event schedule to cultivate relationships and network with the industry’s most active and influential professionals.

The agenda features a broad range of topics specifically tailored to the needs of hospital facility administrators evaluating their next project.  This program will share examples of where different approaches can be applicable; and how they can save money and time when dealing with upgrades, repairs, and maintenance. 

The program will also highlight when certain delivery structures do or do not make sense, and what major considerations need to be made once choosing this route, including the first steps. The agenda will offer numerous case studies (big, medium and small examples of successful and unsuccessful projects) of how alternative delivery can work. 

The agenda takes a clear look at current trends in healthcare procurement, construction and design, while examining contract structures, facility types, and financing mechanisms in use. Through conversations with facility owners, operators, and advisers, the Conference explores best practices and lessons learned from successful partnerships. 

A list of best practices and lessons learned will be presented, including: 

Pre-award Discussion Topics:

• Assessing feasibility: what type of projects are best served by alternative delivery
• Steps to take to ensure your procurement process is setup for success
• Identifying the merits and risks of alternative delivery structures
• Options for small and medium facilities seeking partnerships
• Defining project requirements and identifying appropriate project delivery models
• How to score, select, and negotiate with prospective partners
• Understanding the potential credit impacts delivery models can have on rating and debt capacity
• Political considerations for developing and implementing community projects
• The role of a political or internal champion in building partnerships
• Coordinating internal and external stakeholders to optimize delivery
• Hidden costs and overlooked risks
• Meeting deferred O&M challenges: how major maintenance, repair and replacement should be considered when evaluating your next project
• How projects stumble and what are the lessons learned

Team Work and Collaboration Discussion Topics:

• The importance of early engagement with private partners
• Integration tools and techniques that enhance collaboration
• Owner roles/responsibilities in executing partnerships
• Risk balance and expectation management
• Stakeholder management
• Communication strategies – how to win political and local support with successful communication plans

Advanced Project Delivery Discussion Topics:

• Aligning Owner and Developer perspectives
• Contract administration
• Risk identification, mitigation, and tradeoff strategies
• Asset monetization of non-core infrastructure assets
• Financing solutions and value propositions under alternative delivery
• The influence of design within the design-build process
• Value creation from transferring operations and maintenance
• International models
• Latest innovations and life-cycle efficiencies in project delivery

We’re always working with the industry’s top thought-leaders to build our program. If you have interest in participating, please contact Sarah Zinn at szinn@accessintel.com.

How To Determine the Appropriate Project Delivery Model
How are project owners determining the optimal delivery model for their projects? Before initiating procurement, facility owners should undertake a business case analysis to determine whether a traditional or alternative procurement is likely to yield higher benefit through the life of an asset. Presenters representing healthcare facilities will discuss their pre-procurement methods and explore the applicability of traditional and alternative methods to infrastructure projects currently in the pipeline. 

Innovative Ways to Avoid Construction Disputes – DRBs and Their Application
Disputes and claims have been a part of construction projects for many years and oftentimes drag out well after the completion of the project, tying up valuable resources and adding costs. Actively managing the dispute or claim or, even better yet, helping avoid the claim or dispute entirely, saves time and money for all the parties involved. This workshop discusses how Dispute Review Boards (DRBs) have been used for many years on transportation related projects. By having a DRB start at the beginning of a project, the DRB can often help involved parties avoid a dispute by being proactive with the parties in getting issues settled and avoiding a dispute altogether. The conversation will provide an overview of the DRB process and how it can help avoid disputes or get them settled in a timely and efficient manner.

Delivering Mental Health Facilities
Mental health facility design is a critical component of patient care. The design of mental health facilities affects how services are provided and the efficiency with which care is delivered. Equally, if not more important, than its direct functional impact, however, is the psychological impact mental health facility design has on its users. Facility design impacts the beliefs, expectations, and perceptions patients have about themselves, the staff who care for them, the services they receive, and the larger health care system in which those services are provided. Moreover, facility design can also have a significant impact on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of staff and on how staff identify and interact with patients and the environment. In this session we look at recent examples of projects delivered, and discuss noteworthy technical architectural and engineering specifications. Join us for this discussion which emphasizes principles and strategies for building state-of-the-art, recovery-oriented environments for mental health settings.

Accelerating Environmental Review and Entitlements for Healthcare Projects
This panel will discuss what environmental and entitlement obstacles hospitals are facing and how local agencies are approaching entitlement applications, as well as present innovative solutions to these issues and constraints. Case studies from recently completed healthcare projects in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Riverside Counties will cover topics including each project’s spillover effects on the community (traffic, emergency sirens, and emergency helicopters, etc.) and how impacts on local communities and neighbors are mitigated, especially with the shift in hospital focus to more outpatient care. Case studies for recent successfully completed projects in San Diego and Southern California will be described. In particular, compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) will be described, including recommendations to streamline document preparation and approval through local jurisdictions. The importance of outreach strategy with lead agencies and stakeholders will also be discussed. Details provided from these case studies will be useful to other health care delivery professionals for use in upcoming procurements and RFPs.

What Does a Successful Project Look Like Today? Understanding Different Project Delivery Approaches  
This panel will explore the ingredients for success based on selected criteria (participants, risk allocation, performance, schedule and funding/financing) of innovative project delivery approaches.  Our panelists will discuss how elements in contracts and planning specifically helped expedite schedules, reduce costs, bridge funding gaps and insure long term asset management. We will look closely at and compare three different successful structures and projects

Applying Design-Build Best Practices to Healthcare Project Delivery 
The presentation and follow-on discussion, explores the intersection of current design-build practices and how they should be adapted for healthcare projects. With a collaborative delivery inherently embedded in almost any alternative delivery approach, mastering the design-build learning curve is fundamental to successfully implementing projects. The presentation focuses on identifying key issues and risk transfer considerations unique to design-build delivery followed by an interactive discussion addressing key implementation issues  For example: what are the preparation steps needed for an to implement a project without prior hands-on design-build experience? How does the fixed price design-build approach translate to a procurement, particularly in relation to prescriptive- versus performance-based requirements? Is there a progressive design-build option within the DB framework? How does the risk transfer and securitization of existing DBO models compare to traditional delivery? How can commissioning approaches and acceptance metrics for design-build and DBO projects be applied in today’s environment?

A Template for Instilling Confidence in the Procurement Process 
To attract consortium partners (developers, investors, contractors and service professionals), owners must instill confidence in the procurement process. This sessions explores how to develop a dedicated institutional framework designed to manage and guide programs and projects.

Solutions for Rural Areas
What project delivery model work for your next project ? A panel of practitioners and industry experts will explore how different methods can create opportunities in rural areas and small cities. This discussion will emphasize best practices and lessons learned from alternative project delivery for rural areas, and participants will learn how to develop a strategy for their communities: including specific steps to take advantage of best practices in public facility procurement.

Financing and Funding Approaches Available in Today’s Market
This session brings together the perspectives of infrastructure banks, state funds, capital market experts, and healthcare focused agencies to discuss a range of familiar and lesser known programs available to communities evaluating project investment. Panelists will share insight on the risks and advantages of different options, while considering key issues related to the application process; project selection; leveraging resources; credit analysis; determining leverage; aggregating smaller projects; the role of public private partnerships; hybrid funding; implementation; and proper stakeholder coordination. A key objective in this session is to explore ways that these programs can help accelerate and foster increased investment in critical healthcare infrastructure in the U.S.

New Strategies for Deferred O&M 
How can your development plan can include long-term operations and maintenance obligations. O&M is mounting challenge faced by facility operators across the country, and many project owners have stated that these operations and maintenance services are one of the biggest reasons for considering alternative delivery models. This session will discuss how the inclusion of these key deliverables to maintain infrastructure and improve service.

Using Project Delivery to Transform Energy Management 
In the context of an increasing focus on energy cost, volatility, carbon impact and security of supply, facility managers are transforming their energy systems by deploying innovative technical solutions and contracting approaches. These approaches are modernizing aging systems to meet resilience and sustainability objectives, while reducing costs and releasing value. This session discusses examples of good practice and discuss the actions and approaches cities and agencies can take to improve their energy outcomes through different delivery type models, drawing upon experts from both the construction and contract management realms.

Contract Management and Making the Partnership Work 
When a contract is signed with a private party, the work of the partnership begins, and both parties have to live up to their responsibilities. Contracts attempt to identify and plan for the potential events that could occur during the life of the project, but can rarely imagine all events into the future.  This module will present the fundamentals and challenges of contract management, methods to streamline documentation. examine contract requirements, discuss enforcement policies, as well as techniques for amending, renegotiating or terminating contracts. 

Winning Formulas for Healthcare Infrastructure Projects 
Alternative project delivery is moving up the agenda in the market but definitions is can be mixed and confusing. This session navigates through the confusion by outlining the different delivery models and discussing the key components of successful facility projects underway in the U.S. 

Understanding Public Private Partnerships – Risk Balance and Expectation Management
One of the hallmarks of a successful P3 project is the sharing of risk between the owner and private sectors. Where can the balance be stricken and how can you be sure you have identified all the project risk categories for which transfer is an appropriate deal point? This session will discuss how stakeholders can work together to establish expectations and strike a fair balance for risk transfer between them on P3 jobs. The panel will address how to manage risk transfer in design and construction costs, operational and maintenance risk, and political risk can impact the value for money analysis. We will discuss risk allocation, as well as among the various members of private concessionaire teams. Finally, once the appropriate risk categories have been identified, we will discuss the different vehicles available to implementing risk transfer. 

Accelerating Environmental Review and Entitlements for Healthcare Projects
Hospitals and healthcare facilities are critical infrastructure for local communities, yet complicated environmental and entitlement burdens can drastically delay project delivery.  Entitlements and environmental approvals for healthcare campus development can be challenging obstacles in healthcare project delivery, especially in states with strong regulations like California.   This panel will provide recent case studies to share lessons learned and tips for accelerating environmental and entitlement burdens. 

Investor Capital Options for System and Physical Practices
Capital constraints and other issues have made third-party partnerships more important than ever. In an era when most hospital systems are trying to conserve revenue, invest in patient care, stretch dollars, deal with compliance, and improve access to technology, it is becomingly increasingly important for consider relationships with third-party capital partners, including those that invest in healthcare real estate (HRE) facilities to stay competitive.  This session is a panel discussion regarding the use by healthcare providers, both system and physician practices, for the use of third party investor capital. Panelists will include large and small system representatives, capital providers, and healthcare real estate advisors. Subtopics will include (i) the current market trends and what are key property attributes to attract third party capital, (ii) the anticipated volume in the industry, and (iii) forecast on where experts would find the capital markets in 2019 and beyond.

Thinking Small – Implementation in Healthcare: IPDs for $10 Million or Less
While it’s common to hear about mega-projects and their use of Integrated Project Delivery, the reality is that small projects make up a majority of the project landscape across the country. This panel discussion looks at a large healthcare system located in Chicago and its first two IPD projects utilizing an Integrated Form of Agreement. In this session we examine the first agreement of its type to be used for a healthcare project in the Chicago area: an integrated Form of Agreement signed by the Owner, Architect, Mechanical Engineer, Electrical Engineer, and General Contractor (which also included subcontractors that shared in the risk/reward pool).   Panelists will discuss the unique challenges in implementing the ILPD tools from large scale jobs to the $10M and less scale for a new ground-up building and an interior hospital renovation. With a specific focus to be made on key decisions at the project’s outset that were instrumental to 1) significant project cost reduction and 2) how the original construction schedule set at 11 months from groundbreaking was completed in 9 months, 2 months early and in line with the project goal of substantial completion and occupancy.

When Nature Attacks: How Should We React? Building Resiliency and Disaster Preparedness
Healthcare facilities have a central role in a community’s resilience and ability to respond and resume services after major natural disasters. However climate change today is introducing complex hazards that challenge traditional assumptions for building capabilities, needs, redundancies, and ability to respond in times of disaster.  Should recent high-profile fire and flooding events in California, Texas, and along the East Coast usher in a new age of new building design and construction thresholds for climate-resilient facilities? In this session we will hear about the experiences of three facilities as they discuss how their organizations had been recently impacted by extreme weather events.  How can we design and plan healthcare buildings to be flexible in the face of environmental uncertainty. Panelists will share their how their organizations are revaluating risks and planning in the face of extreme weather possibilities. And we review recent and upcoming projects that integrate sustainable communications, energy, water and waste infrastructure to a standard of climate resilience to withstand events over the anticipated life of the structure.

Integrated Approaches to Building A Public Facility Microgrid
The facility microgrid market sector is quickly developing, as stakeholders have verifiable examples of successful installations in the utility, municipal, and healthcare spaces. Microgrids offer facility owners and managers an innovative and reliable solution to fit their unique needs. Smart design of microgrids can contribute significantly to achieving key microgrid goals such as energy supply reliability and resiliency, source flexibility, cost-effective demand response and carbon reduction.  This presentation describes strategies for microgrids, including renewable sources, power generation, hot water and chilled water and energy storage systems. The talk will also focus on contract structures and how owners can install microgrids quickly without impacting facility budgets and everyday operations. A discussion on lessons learned from the feasibility and design process through construction, startup and testing will be included in addition to the regulatory aspects to consider in a tactical implementation. 

Your Next Procurement: Top 10 Issues
What are the top 10 issues you should make sure you address when procuring your next project? Hear from this panel of project delivery advisors with hands-on experience about procurement Best Practices and Lesson Learned. This panel will provide guidance on how to navigate the procurement process and identify actions you can take to anticipate issues and achieve resolution so that your next procurement will be successful.