Hospitals across America have been in a constant state of change for the last 20 years. Delivery of services has changed as often as payment for services have been modified. With major changes on the horizon for how hospitals receive payment along with the potential inclusion of some 30 million new customers, healthcare institutions are gearing up for another revolution and parking stands in the middle.
Two things have always been constant in hospital planning: Patient care is the number one priority and everyone needs a place to park. While the administration plans strategy for maintaining patient care, they must also understand how the changing dynamic of healthcare delivery impacts parking. This is why parking is often a second thought. Like the old saying, “When you are up to your neck in alligators, it is hard to remember your mission was to drain the swamp,” many healthcare institutions fail to keep the parking ball in the air when they are concentrating on so many others.
This article is intended to provide a simple way to assess parking needs while keeping a focus on customer service. Since parking is not just about patients, the customer service focus allows hospitals to keep an eye on all of its constituencies.
Where do you begin?
Parking allocation is the first question to be addressed. Since the front door has changed at many hospitals over the last 10 years, campus parking was forced to evolve. It is only logical to understand that the most convenient parking is located near the front door. Some institutions planned for this while others maintained the status quo. It is not simply a matter of location alone. User groups need to be defined, walking distances to final destination points analyzed, and demand projected.
The demand question is the wildcard today. With so much up in the air, accurate demand projections might seem to only be speculation. The parking demand formulas used by parking consultants in the past need to be modified. Parking demand under changing conditions can still be accurately projected with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 to 10%. However, your consultants need to use another tool-scenario planning. Not every parking consultant has this tool in their bag, but some do. Simply ask them how scenario planning would improve the process for modeling the parking needs of your campus. This should not be a “deer in the headlights” question.
Scenario planning is a process used by more companies today as the future is uncertain and many possibilities exist that can alter their business structure. Energy companies, for example, use scenario planning before deciding on new oil drilling ventures. They are looking into a future that is 20 years away.
Companies looking to profit from uncertain times realize that more than 50% of their success is dependent upon something other than their own actions. Scenario planning helps them gain a measure of control.
The healthcare industry is in the same boat. Your industry's actions account for only 10 percent. Economic conditions and government regulations account for 35%. Scenarios are powerful tools that could be used in all areas of health facility planning. Here is what they do for you:
anticipate emerging trends;
adapt to changing conditions;
avoid threats;
identify and exploit opportunities;
unleash innovation;
outmaneuver competitors; and
grow revenue and increase profitability.
Hospitals planning campus parking needs for the future using scenarios will be better equipped to make cost-effective improvements as conditions change. The important thing to remember is unleashing innovation. Parking in the healthcare environment needs innovation in order to maintain a focus on customer service.
Traditionally, parking consultants have created formulas for projecting user group parking needs. User groups fall into three categories: visitors/patients, employees, and doctors. The evolution of the parking demand model went from bed census being the dominant factor to outpatient treatments. The driver for healthcare parking has been employees. Hospitals tried to control parking demand by evaluating changes in shift change. Instead of having no peak parking hours at a hospital, the hospital ended up with multiple peaks without reduction in demand. Over the years, the advent of outpatient treatments and medical office buildings on campus created a new dynamic for physician parking. Since doctors are critical to the operation of the hospital, their parking was usually the most convenient. However, they are only at the hospital for limited hours. Therefore, this valuable parking asset sits empty most of the day. It is easy to understand the negative impact on customer service when visitors see large numbers of empty parking spaces next to the hospital while they search rows upon row to find an empty space in the visitor parking lot.
When we return to the basics, we must start with the recognition of the 24-hour nature of core services and the subsequent impact on parking. However, as has been noted with shift change dynamics, it is understood that parking demand during the peak hour is the top priority. If you meet the peak demand, then parking throughout the rest of the day will not be a problem. However, a campus environment is not as simple to quantify as a stand-alone hospital. What if the dynamics of the campus indicate a second peak hour that is only slightly lower than the peak? That in itself is not a problem, but it becomes problematic when the secondary peak includes a change in user demand. For example the peak parking demand at a hospital is 2,000, with employees accounting for 1,100 spaces of the peak, doctors taking up 200 spaces and customers, 700. The next peak hour is 1,800 spaces, but employee demand has shrunk to 800 spaces and customers have increased to 1,000.
Could simply planning for the peak be a problem at this hospital?
A campus can also create complicated and often competitive mixed-use parking environments. While on one hand it presents unique challenges, parking today is also creating marketing opportunities. Local and regional institutions are brands in the communities they serve. Everything about their brand has to make the same promise. Therefore, parking has to be part of the brand. When it is, the institution's marketing includes parking as a marketing tool. They recognize that many customers are grieving when they arrive or leave. In fact, a higher percentage of the visiting population has either permanent or temporary disabilities, or access challenges. Add to these challenges major facility changes such as the creation of new outpatient entrances, relocation of the “front door,” and emergency department renovations or expansion, etc.-the problems of healthcare parking and campus access rise quickly to the forefront of important marketing issues. It is the role of marketing to communicate to its customers access issues, including parking.
All of the marketing in the world will not help the institution, if the new parking structure is not easy to navigate. The variety of possible internal circulation systems can be daunting. Add to this the fact that a significant percentage of the population has vision problems or color blindness. Therefore, the design of the parking needs to be completed by a firm specializing in the design of multilevel parking structures. It would be preferable for the firm to have extensive experience designing parking structures for hospitals. Why? Because all parking structures are not created equal. The flow capacity, entrances, and exits, as well as location of accessible spaces are different in hospital parking than they would be for an office building or retail center.
Since many hospitals are looking at parking to create additional revenue streams, parking consultants are a unique source of unbiased information on the best parking access and revenue control system for each particular hospital. Technology for parking has made similar advances to those in the medical device industry. In addition to these reasons, hospital facilities staff should also consider the inherent safety/security issues associated with all campus parking, but specifically parking structures.
Again, the best marketing in the world will go negative, if you have an incident in one of your parking facilities. Therefore, lighting, passive security, and active security are all part of the plan you need to have when providing parking safety for your customers and employees.
Finally, parking planning and design is not the same for hospitals as it was 10 years ago. Developing a new parking plan, with an understanding of various contingencies, might cost money in the short run. But when you are able to integrate it with your facility master plan and future marketing plan, it will more than pay for itself through revenue increases and customer satisfaction. HBI
