Keynote : Facilities 09: Rethinking the hospital

I’ve been confirmed as the opening keynote speaker for “Facilities 09“, a conference organized by the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, to be held in Austin, Texas in mid-May.

They’re running with my “Moving Beyond the Meltdown: Aligning for Growth Through Innovation” topic. It’s another group who finds that in order to move the their association forward, they need to move them beyond their current mindset. They’re using the keynote description:

“In the face of widespread economic volatility, organizations have three choices: they can panic, making rash decisions on structure, markets, investments; they can freeze and do nothing; or they can respond to rapid change through innovation, particularly with respect to strategies, structure, capabilities, markets, products, and activities. Jim Carroll, one of the world’s leading futurists, trends and innovation experts with clients such as Lincoln Financial, Caterpillar, the Walt Disney Organization and Nestle, will share his insight on the strategies that leading edge organizations are pursuing to stay ahead of the economy.”

Look, here’s the thing: at some point, whether it’s one year, five years, or even ten years, we’ll be back into a growth economy. People will be busy rethinking business models ; they will be aggressively transforming business methodologies to achieve cost savings; they’ll be partnering in new ways with new partners in order to achieve new goals; they’ll be busy implementing a flood of new ideas driven by rapid science.

In terms of the future of health care facility design, there is no shortage of ideas in terms of design momentum: green building concepts, hyperconnected energy management systems, the concept of the virtual hospital with remote patient management, and the need for rapid implementation of new medical treatment capabilities. All of which (and many more) pose the challenge of : how we design in the context of high-velocity change? And how do we get our mindset out of the challenges of the “here-and-now” so that we’re focused not just on managing the current challenges, but are fully prepared to attack with zeal the opportunities of the future?

That’s the mindset and message that I’ll carry into Austin, Texas in two months.

Think growth!

• Facilities ’09 conference web site
• It’s January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade?
• Future Medicine: Prescriptions for 21st Century Health Care