The first thing you should know what changes you want to do in your hospital. So that you can take the decision,whether to replace the existing facilities or renovate them. Before going to take a decision regarding to renovate an hospital or to build a new one, there are a few key elements in the process that can assist you in clarifying the key decision points.
The first step is gather all assumptions from your staff and stakeholders and allows assumptions. In the end, challenging assumptions allows for more creative problem solving solutions to emerge, as you weigh the options to renovate or build new. Next, identify the problems or the areas that need changes and setup goals with clarity and according to the fulfillment of problems.
Hospital administration should follow the steps to analyze the information and take the decision whether to renovate or rebuild.
a. What is needed?
First identify the goals of the hospitals such as what are the changes you need to do. Then you have to prepare a strategic plan to take the decision easily. A strategic plan can be helpful to identify the hospital’s strategic position, keeping in mind some of the important factors, such as, patients and staff satisfaction, relationship between the patients and staff, utilization of space, etc. The next step is to summarize all of the future needs in a concise list and gain the hospital’s consensus. Here you must understand your market. How is the population going to change? How will aging, culture, and technology affect use rates? What will be your future share of the market?
b. Renovate or Rebuild:
Older hospitals are less adaptable to modern uses than others. You have to consider the space of the hospital, is existing space enough for fulfilling the future needs of the hospital? Is there vacant space available?. Getting answer to these questions will help you to determine the space of the hospital. So if it does not satisfy the patients and staff then you have to go for rebuild for effective utilization of space. By reconstructing new hospital you can build more rooms.
Next and most important thing is technology. You have to adapt new technology as per the new trends. So that it will help you to reduce the work load of your staff. After that you have to check all other equipments and tool conditions, which are used in hospital. This is done to prevent accidents and incidents and create safe environment with in the hospital.
Some old hospital buildings are not suitable for electrical and energy systems to meet modern needs. So this also helps to take decisions whether to renovate or rebuild.
Sometimes, the decision becomes obvious before the study is even completed. Everyone wants a shiny new hospital, but most of the people will go for renovate rather than rebuild, because of the cost. Cost is less in renovating an hospital but when any accidents happens then hospital needs to spend more money than rebuild. So analysis is more important before going to take a decision. By renovating your current hospital facilities, if you can create a safe work environment, then it is good to go with renovation, otherwise, rebuilding is the right choice.