What Sets Us Apart

Parallel and Modular Construction

Parallel construction means building different parts of the facility at the same time, or before, other areas that traditionally need to be done before work could start.

These construction activities are completed off-site or near-site in a controlled environment and are not constrained by site permits. This approach provides benefits in quality, labor management, faster completion of the building, cost, and less risk of weather related delays.

Modular components are a key aspect of HCA Healthcare’s strategy. Modular components are pieces and parts of a building that are designed, purchased, built, and shipped from an off-site fabrication facility for rapid assembly on site. Modules can be as large as a full scale functional area, like a hospital operating suite, or they can be as specific as bathroom pods, patient room head walls, foot walls, sink walls, nurses’ stations, and exterior wall panels.

Our scale allows for standardized designs of modular units so the best quality is consistently achieved in mass production. Using modular solutions provides a parallel track of build activities that traditionally were completed in a series of dependent activities. Building pieces and parts of our facilities in parallel allows us to open doors and serve our communities faster than the traditional build approach.

Learn more about our processes managing the modular approach by checking out the HCA Healthcare Capital Deployment Manufactured Component Playbook.

Early Design Involvement

Early Design Involvement (EDI) is HCA’s version of the design-assist process.  Focusing on feeding our vision of continuous improvement, eliminating waste and reducing cost, the EDI program offers an opportunity for the entire team to purposefully unite and align efforts on achieving these goals. This method of project delivery is flow-dependent versus resource-dependent which greatly affects a project team’s approach for scheduling, manpower, and overall execution of the project.  HCA Healthcare believes that this provides a better value by lowering the overall cost of the project while increasing the quality of the final product.

Some unique features found in successful integrated design and construction teams (EDI teams) include:

• Timing: Involvement of architects, engineers, general contractor, and key trade contractors at the beginning of the design process to affect the cost and schedule.  For HCA, this means collaboration between HCA Healthcare Capital Deployment Manager, HCA Healthcare Construction Manager, hospital, architect/engineer, general contractor, and trade contractors.
• Collaboration: Continuous drawing and specification review between all parties ensures the plan can be designed and constructed with a predictable result.
• This implies:
  • Working to produce a well-coordinated and vetted set of documents jointly by the design team and trades.
  • Proactively identifying constructability issues.
  • Performing exploratory research into existing conditions to mitigate delays during construction.
  • Ensuring the level of details in the final construction documents are sufficient to provide clarity during construction.  This should result in minimizing/eliminating construction RFIs based on early design clarifications.
• Design/process optimization: Integration between architects, engineers, general contractors, and trade contractors to ensure the architecture and engineering systems can be procured and built without post-design clarifications.  This includes coordinating to optimize equipment sizing, system routing, etc.
• Measurement: Setting project goals with entire team and measuring against project goals. Measurement of critical factors is key to clearly document the achievement of stated goals.
• Continuous improvement: Conducting lessons learned sessions throughout the life of the project (end of design/CD phase and end of construction phase, at a minimum) to provide data for continuous process improvement.  Additionally, targeting areas of improvement based on lessons learned from previous projects.

View our Early Design Involvement (EDI) Implementation Guide.

Committed to Diversity

HCA Healthcare is committed to a culture of diversity that reflects the communities in which we live and do business. HCA Healthcare’s Design and Construction Department has established a Diversity Business Inclusion (DBI) program that influences contracting and purchasing processes to include minority and diverse businesses. We recognize the value in aiding the development and economic prosperity of minority and diverse businesses of all sizes.

• We work with our partner companies’ diversity coordinators to support outreach efforts.
• We build relationships with and connect our partners with designated diversity coordinator in the various markets we serve.
• We review our partnering firms’ diversity outreach efforts and consider their track record of building participation when awarding work.
• We encourages protégé programs that allow large partnering firms to joint venture with smaller, less experienced firms allowing them to gain experience in healthcare construction.