The leader of CollinsWoerman's healthcare sector work, Phil Giuntoli has nearly 40 years of experience with programming, designing, and managing complex medical projects, including serving as Director of Capital Project Management and Director of Facilities with Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. Giuntoli brings an insider’s perspective and client-oriented focus to his work.
Before joining CollinsWoerman, Giuntoli’s career was already concentrated on healthcare design, including master plans for the Veteran’s Administration in Portland, Oregon; Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas; and Children’s Hospital, Southern Baptist Hospitals, and Alton Oschner Foundation, all in New Orleans. Healthcare Building Ideas Editor-in-Chief Todd Hutlock spoke with Giuntoli about his experiences and insights as to the state of the healthcare design and construction industry.
Todd Hutlock: You’ve held multiple positions over the course of your career, which gives you some unique perspectives on the healthcare community. What can you tell us about your experience?
Phil Giuntoli: For the first 13 or 14 years of my career, I was a healthcare medical planner and project designer, and I worked on various scaled projects on the outside, so to speak. I wound up going to Group Health Cooperative, which is the largest-staffed HMO here, and working on projects on the inside for them, working with architects on the outside. This helped me understand two things: one was the real value system and what was really important on the inside healthcare institutions. The other thing was the best ways that architectural firms communicated as I was working with half a dozen or more firms as the client.
Hutlock: What has changed in the industry since your career started?
Giuntoli: What I think has changed is that architects were used to being more dominating in the conversations. Many had an attitude of, “We’re the experts, and we know what to do here—you get out of the way and let us do that.” It’s almost become a total collaboration now. The communication has become much more natural and integrated.
