Building next-gen healthcare facilities: the future of integrated facilities management

(1/31/2025)

The new year is here and healthcare leaders are shaping their plans for the coming months, assessing the resources and expertise required to carry their goals across the finish line. One thing’s for sure: The speed and magnitude of change we must navigate in healthcare demands we manage our environment of care differently. Data from hundreds of healthcare facilities, ranging from small outpatient clinics to large hospitals, points to integrated facilities management (IFM) as the best path forward for driving efficiencies, reducing costs, and supporting better healthcare delivery.

The new year is here and healthcare leaders are shaping their plans for the coming months, assessing the resources and expertise required to carry their goals across the finish line. One thing’s for sure: The speed and magnitude of change we must navigate in healthcare demands we manage our environment of care differently. Data from hundreds of healthcare facilities, ranging from small outpatient clinics to large hospitals, points to integrated facilities management (IFM) as the best path forward for driving efficiencies, reducing costs, and supporting better healthcare delivery.
 
IFM differs sharply from outdated facilities management approaches in three key aspects: 

1. Moving from reactive to proactive
2. Banishing silos and uniting all components impacting the built environment
3. Leveraging integrated data to pinpoint and predict facility needs with a high degree of accuracy, even years in advance

Eliminating blind spots, inefficiencies, and question marks with holistic FM integration    

Historically, various functions of the built environment have been managed by separate vendors or teams who rarely, if ever, communicate with one another. Even so, those disparate functions impact and build on one another, either hurting or helping the next, whether it’s an office renovation, a damaged roof, a regulatory violation, a gas leak, sustainability initiatives, or an imminent weather disaster, to name a few. 
 
IFM integrates those functions that have traditionally been siloed, including the following:

• Facilities maintenance
• Groundskeeping/landscaping
• Regulatory compliance and survey readiness
• Planning, design, and construction
• Real estate management
• Energy and utility efficiency
• Safety and emergency preparedness/response
• Sustainability initiatives
• Capital planning 

By bringing these elements together under one coordinated strategy, healthcare organizations can supercharge efficiencies, shrink costs, and accelerate organizational goals. This robust strategy also enables integrated data capture, making it possible to accurately forecast facility, workforce, and spending needs, even years down the road.

The power of integrated facilities data    

Michael Argir, CEO and president of Medxcel, has witnessed the impact of data and service integrations in facilities management. For the last decade, Medxcel has integrated all of the services outlined above and built an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that allows facility leaders to view real-time data on all factors affecting their facilities. 
 
“We can track everything from how our construction projects are proceeding to ensuring repair and maintenance are aligned so efficiencies aren’t lost when we add something new to the equation,” Argir explains. “That integrated approach gives us diverse perspectives that, quite frankly, mitigate risk. We’re able to provide our clients with factual data about everything inside their facility so they can predict capital investments for the next 3-5 years, down to when a specific piece of equipment might break down requiring replacement,” Argir adds.
 
To that end, this factual data can be complemented by historical performance and operational data from hundreds of partners across the country. That insight into data from similar facilities helps leaders benchmark, predict, and plan for their organization, translating into considerable savings and cost avoidance opportunities. “We guarantee our savings right out of the gate, analyzing each organization so we’re able to say: ‘We can do this for less and here’s the strategy we’ll employ to ensure that amount of savings,’” says Argir.
 
Beyond integrated data, two other IFM components make those outcomes possible: 

1. Consolidated spend and buying power through a vetted national supplier network
2. Labor insourcing, bringing skilled workers into client facilities, reducing reliance on costly, external contracts

On average, Medxcel client facilities embracing this IFM model save 10-15% in facilities management costs over the life of their contracts. “When we come to the table, we know exactly what we can save the organization, and how we’re going to achieve it,” Argir says. 
 
Looking ahead, the goals you’re working toward are inextricably connected to your built environment. In an era of rising complexity and pressure on healthcare leaders to boost efficiencies and lower costs, IFM is no longer just an option — it’s a necessity for building and sustaining better healing environments.