In September, 2009, at the Healthcare Facilities Symposium in Chicago, a group of designers, manufacturers and owners came together for two days to explore the manufacturability of healthcare environments.  The conversation during that two day session addressed three primary objectives:

1. Can the environment play a key role toward empowering transformative team based care concepts to improve both the quality and efficiency of care delivery?
2. Can technology be more responsive and less bound by the constraints of architecture in our facilities?
3. Can we envision a “kit of parts” that allows for high aesthetic variability while simplifying and expediting project delivery?

By the end of that session, many of those manufacturers committed to delivering a prototype to demonstrate their thinking for this year’s symposium.  This year’s symposium shall feature the fruits of their efforts and a plenary session facilitated by a distinguished panel of experts.

This session, and the associated exhibit shall address four key learning objectives:
1. How does space without substantive fixed features augment flexibility and increase efficiency in the care delivery process?
2. What are the benefits of removing large portions of the infrastructure within architecture, such as medical gasses and connected critical power in patient care environments?
3. Can a kit of parts transform our ideas about quality and modularity?
4. Will the healthcare model of the future rely on costly inpatient environments?

This promises to be a milestone event in the national and even international conversation about healthcare environments and the future of global healthcare delivery!

Change-making, determined, inspirational, strong: Rick Hansen is best known as the Man In Motion. In 1985, at the age of 27, the Canadian athlete struck out on a journey that would make history. Propelling his wheelchair through 34 countries on four continents, for more than 40,000km, Rick battled the elements and the odds. He wheeled the equivalent of three marathons a day to return home to Vancouver in 1987. His Man In Motion World Tour raised awareness of the potential of people with disabilities and $26 million for spinal cord injury.  It also inspired people around the world to believe in their own potential, their own hopes and their own dreams. Rick’s Tour made us all think about what we could do to make the world a better place. 

You could either go home, or you could try to find a way. I think that’s really what Rick’s all about—he’s able to help people work through the process. It’s not where you end up that counts, but what you’ve learned along with way. —Don Alder, Equipment Manager on Man In Motion World Tour & Rick’s best friend.

Calling on team courage and determination, Rick continues to engage new generations to share and build on his dreams, turning them into reality. 

I honestly believe that my best work is in front, not behind me, I’m driven by wanting to make a difference and leave this world a little better than when I arrived.

It was due to a car crash at the age of 15 that Rick Hansen sustained a spinal cord injury. Paralyzed from the waist down, he slowly came to terms with how to deal with his new life, setting new goals from new dreams. Aft er seven months of rehabilitation, Rick returned to his fi rst passion: sports. Fuelled by his mantra “anything is possible”, he inspired athletes of all abilities by winning 19 international wheelchair marathons and several medals at the 1980 and 1984 Paralympic Summer Games. He chaired the Commission for the Inclusion of Athletes with Disabilities, helped create full medal status for Commonwealth Games athletes and was named “Athlete of the Century,” by British Columbia Wheelchair Sports.

I’ve over 300 dreams and I’ll be lucky if I can pull 10 of them down. But maybe I’ll be lucky enough to have inspired others along the way.

This session is a follow-up to last year’s thought-provoking “Stop Work” panel discussion focusing on the delay of projects as a result of the market downturn. Just as many hospitals and health systems put projects on hold during a tumultuous economic marketplace in 2008/2009, some of these same projects are back online as the capital market begin to flow and investment portfolios start to recover. We will explore several key factors and have our returning panel of diverse industry experts weigh in on their experiences and knowledge of the marketplace and the capacity for a project restart. We will explore the following questions: • When/why was the project initially put on hold? • How was the decision made to restate the project? • How has the concept changed? • How have the program, budget, schedule, and team evolved? • What lessons were learned through the ‘hold’ process? • What is different in the marketplace now compared to 12 and 18 months ago?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Learn how to re-evaluate a project during an economic downturn and understand the decision-making process for stopping then re-starting projects.
2. Learn how to challenge all former assumptions to ensure that the revived project makes sense given the new economic reality.
3. Identify typical challenges faced when re-starting a project and learn how to overcome those them.