Activation and Transition Planning

Typically occurring alongside and through construction, activation and transition planning is one of the most important and exciting phases of the facility development process. For healthcare staff members who often are busy caring for patients in an existing facility, this is the period in a project when a new facility starts to become tangible. With only one opportunity to get things right, the risks are significant given the complexity of healthcare facility development projects.

ECG’s Activation and Transition Planning practice focuses on providing strategic guidance and tactical support to help healthcare organizations successfully open new facilities for safe, effective patient care. We partner with an organization’s internal staff to establish a collective understanding of new operations, aid in the coordination and integration of necessary ramp-up activities, and facilitate clinical openings and patient and departmental relocations. Since no two projects are the same, we tailor our tools and methodologies to ideally suit the clients, patients, and communities we serve. When complicated challenges and unique issues arise, we bring forward recommendations based upon past successes, best practices, and lessons learned.

Opening a new facility provides an organization with the opportunity to reach new levels of service, efficiency, quality, and satisfaction for patients, family members, physicians, and clinical staff. However, given the complexity, time, and extensive resources required, many organizations struggle to maximize the potential inherent in their new facility.

Traditional transition planning sometimes focuses only on logistics (e.g., equipment and furniture delivery and installation schedules, building turnover sequencing, patient and staff move schedules). The ECG team is made up of healthcare operations and planning professionals with direct experience in hospital operations and in leading new facility activations and transition efforts, either from within or as part of a contracted expert team. We know the importance of tackling the critical organizational and operating changes, as well as the issues associated with opening a new facility. Therefore, we have widened the traditional scope of activation and transition planning and, in addition to logistics, focus on the future operating environment. This enables our clients to appropriately bring their new facilities online and prepare their workforces for the new environments and operations. Figure 1 is an example of the components of a typical activation and transition planning engagement

Figure 1: Activation and Transition Planning Engagement Components