There was a day when design-bid-build was the obvious choice in terms of how a healthcare construction project would be delivered. However, like any industry, healthcare design is progressing and adapting—and introducing alternatives to what once was the norm.
Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Kovacs Silvis walked through several of the delivery methods in use on healthcare projects today with Richard Freeark, vice president of operations for C.W. Driver’s San Diego region.
In the following three-part online series, Freeark explores the ins and outs of each method, as well as the pros and cons of their specific uses in healthcare. In the third and final installment, he weighs in on integrated project delivery and construction management multi-prime.
Integrated project delivery
While integrated project delivery (IPD) is still somewhat new to the healthcare scene, primarily because few projects have been completed with a true IPD approach (though many more have applied portions of it to varying degrees), it’s certainly gaining plenty of buzz in the industry.
“IPD is a very interesting concept. Back in my earlier days, we went through what we called partnering sessions where you bring everyone together, you mandate that we’re all going to work together, and it came with varying success,” Freeark says. “Partnering always seemed to be if you tell people they have to, they’re going to resent it. Relationships are built by good people working together who have the same goals and drive.”
So what makes IPD different?
“What IPD tries to do is bring everybody in together and use the early expertise of the contractor with the designer—you’re bringing in everyone earlier. What happens is this reduces a lot of the front end questions and helps the schedule immensely,” he says.
Freeark says one drawback to IPD is that the industry has yet to see much of it, as many remain guarded about jumping in with both feet and creating the relationships the delivery method is truly dependent upon and the risk-sharing that defines it.
IPD calls for the contractor, architect, and owner to partner from the start in a three-party contract that shares risk among each of them.
