In a practice known as “resilient design,” health are design and construction professionals are drawing on past disaster experiences to develop facilities made to withstand and recover quickly, according to an article on the Health Facilities Management website.

The question is — How do you harden facilities to ensure that operations can persist, millions of dollars and years of research aren’t lost and health care is maintained under almost any circumstances, without breaking the bank?

One example: The St. Louis-based Mercy health system is building is a replacement facility for St. John’s Regional Medical Center, which was destroyed by a tornado in 2011.

The new building has a precast exterior and a multilayer roof system constructed of lightweight concrete atop a metal deck. Precast material and concrete roofing on the previous facility withstood the forces of the 2011 tornado fairly well, the article said.

In fact, a wrecking ball bounced off the precast several times at the start of the old facility’s demolition.

Read the article.