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Life Safety Plans Improving Survey Outcomes

For hospitals and long-term care facilities, Life Safety Plans have never been a more critical tool for facilities management than in today’s marketplace. A Life Safety Plan is a physical floor plan which summarizes all code requirements for a building’s life safety measures and is a means of egress. While a Life Safety Plan can assist in mitigating business risk across a wide variety of industries, it is particularly beneficial in sectors with a high degree of facility regulation, such as healthcare and long-term care. Plunkett Raysich Architects has seen a 250% increase in the demand for updating Life Safety Plans in the past five years within these industries.  

Improving Revenues: The Untapped Value of Business Facilities

Optimum facilities enable peak performance - As organizations face ongoing fi nancial pressures, most are exercising every available option to increase revenue and/or reduce operating costs. But are all options really on the table? Many leaders struggle to gain board support for facility-related investments, mostly because of “wait and see” hold patterns. Those who have exhausted quick fi x options should seriously consider the benefi ts of facility replacement or improvement. Nothing today should be considered off limits when it comes to improving company performance. Leading organizations know they cannot reach peak performance without the right facility, and it’s not so much a matter of facility expansion as it is facility optimization.

The Two Most Important Elements in NICU Design

As hospitals focus on improving their care delivery experiences, neonatal intensive care services have become a priority. When it comes to NICU design, evidence-based design points to the private or single family room model as a best practice, the result is improved outcomes. Hospital systems have increased NICU construction spending in order to differentiate their service offerings within their communities. Review three recent intermediate care nursery projects that integrated a single family room (SFR) care delivery model in which each has demonstrated measurable success in cost, efficiency, healthy outcomes, and staffing and family satisfaction.

Lower Your Operating Costs with a Building Space Analysis

With the economy struggling to get back on its feet, many long-term care and senior living providers are looking for innovative opportunities that will not only help them survive in the short term but improve their industry position over the long term. You may ask: “How is this possible without expending large amounts of capital resources we don’t have?” The simple answer is to better utilize what you do have to take advantage of cost efficiencies and reconfigure your facilities, bringing them in line with what the market demands.

Achieving Breakthroughs in University Laboratory Design

The complexity of design in today’s university laboratories requires an innovative project approach. The design team for the new Microbial Sciences Building at the University of Wisconsin – Madison faced a challenging interdisciplinary collaboration: three departments planned to share lab space in a single building. This visionary concept in academia demanded an all-new project approach from the design teams at CO Architects, Plunkett Raysich Architects LLP (PRA), and lab consultant Earl Walls Associates. The project consolidates and enables UW-Madison’s multidisciplinary program in Microbial Sciences.

How Fire Station Design Can Improve Emergency Services

Plunkett Raysich Architects continuously adjusts and improves its fire station design process. We’ve discovered that focusing on sensible issues produces the best designs. Recently, our firm identified best fire station design practices that encompass three main principles: station safety, operating efficiency, and station elements/aesthetics.

Three Steps to Profitable Corporate Facility Planning

Corporate facility planning aligns a company’s business objectives with its real estate holdings.  This is a simple equation:

Reduced Real Estate Costs = Higher Profits

But just as simply cutting corners on the “old family recipe” won’t increase sales, merely reducing square footage does not guarantee increased profitability. As the Wicked Witch of the West famously said, “These things must be done delicately!”

The Importance of Education Master Planning for Facilities

The educational facilities master plan is an important business planning document that provides a basis for sound management decisions relative to your school facilities. This planning process allows school administrators to examine the condition of their buildings and decide whether to maintain, remodel, upgrade or replace. In addition, it provides a key component to the strategic plan and mission of an organization. The master plan provides both short- and long-range planning solutions which should be used as a road map that is reviewed and updated every three to five years.