ForWard Healthcare recently came out with our brand new lines of modular casework, prefabricated patient room headwalls, and over 40 solid surface swatches. We are doing so on the cusp of the modular and prefabrication movement in American healthcare, as the need for high-quality, efficiently-designed hospital rooms at reduced construction times and cost reached it peak during the Coronavirus pandemic. Although ForWard Healthcare begins our journey in 2021, we have been tracking this trend for several years — in fact, the very first ForWard Headwall was installed in early 2018, at Presbyterian Saint Luke’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado, as well as at University Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, one of Healthgrades’ Top 250 Hospitals in the Nation.
Prefabrication and modular features in hospitals and medical offices have saved countless hours and dollars not only during construction, but during operating hours and patient visits as well. Getting a hospital constructed and ready to open quickly is important, especially now, but ensuring the ease and speed of transitioning patients and staff in, out, and between hospital rooms is vital to the efficiency and quality of care that these providers can give.
Case Studies
For example, Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver, Colorado was built over a year ahead of schedule due to its prefab and modular features — built in less than three years, this decision saved them roughly $4.3 million in indirect cost savings, including 29,500 fewer hours of work. And that’s just during construction!
This trend has all but slowed during the last year — hospitals across the country have been, and are continuing to build pop-up hospital facilities and overflow patient rooms to accommodate for the recent influx of patients. Headlines in local papers all over the world discuss hospitals being built in less than one month, due to their use of prefabrication and modular furniture.
Overall, modular elements and prefabrication in hospitals is proven to reduce costs in more ways than one in facilities all over the nation. The importance of these time and cost savings is more apparent than ever — and ForWard Healthcare plans to be a part of this movement for years to come.
