In an interview with Health Facilities Management magazine, Leo Gehring, a veteran in healthcare facility management, said facility managers need to stay involved in the current healthcare delivery transition or risk being left out of the decision process.
One of the biggest challenges, according to Gehring, is that mostly left-brained facility managers are working in a mostly right-brained world.
"We still tend to think that we need to build something that is battle-hardened and has all the bells and whistles of traditional hospitals when a lot of patient care is moving into nontraditional environments like retail spaces," he said.
Gehring said the industry must start building long-term partnerships with academia to create healthcare facility management programs to help build the next generation of professionals.
"We can't sit back and complain because young people aren't coming to us as their career choice. Every one of us must become invested in finding our replacements."
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