Harnessing Prefabrication to Balance the Value Equation: Understanding the tangible benefits

In episode 16 of Constructing with Care, we dig into how prefabrication is driving tangible financial benefits, improving safety, and accelerating speed to market for healthcare construction projects. Industry leaders join the conversation to break down the power of standardization, long-term operational savings, and the importance of reducing variation in care environments. Hear real-world examples from healthcare systems and learn how cash flows and standardizing processes can support both the bottom line and community care.

• Guest: Sean Ashcroft, Healthcare Core Market Leader, DPR Construction  

• Guest: Jeff Schroder, AVP Planning, Design and Construction, Atrium Health, part of Advocate Health  

• Guest: Sarah Francis - Enterprise Assistant Vice President, Standards & Activation-Planning, Design & Construction, Advocate Health  

Key Takeaways

[5:20] – Setting the Stage: Financial Pressures + Tech Investments
Host Leslie kicks off the conversation by exploring how prefab can address rising financial pressures for healthcare systems while supporting aggressive tech investments.

[6:20] – Two Big Wins from Prefab (Sean)
Sean highlights the long-term flexibility and operational uptime of prefab systems, plus how prefab impacts critical path scheduling to generate revenue faster.

[7:12] – Hospital Perspective: Managing Cashflow at Scale (Jeff)
Jeff dives into Atrium Health’s approach to managing billions in active projects, explaining how prefab helps front-load purchases and reduce variation and risk from supply chain disruptions and tariffs.

[9:17] – Standardization at the Enterprise Level (Sarah)
Sarah underscores the importance of minimizing variation across builds, enabling process improvement and better data insights. Standardization is key to long-term efficiency.

[10:12] – Compounding Effects of Eliminating Variation
Sean expands on how standardization and prefab eliminate variation early—helping avoid rework and driving downstream time and cost savings.

 

Quotes

• Jeff Schroder, AVP Planning, Design and Construction, Atrium Health, part of Advocate Health   "Prefabrication helps us mitigate unpredictable factors like weather, labor shortages, and tariffs."

  Sarah Francis, Enterprise Assistant Vice President, Standards & Activation-Planning, Design & Construction, Advocate Health   "To ensure long-term efficiency we need to focus on minimizing variation, keeping a standardized approach that also allows us to measure and have data." 

  Sean Ashcroft, Healthcare Core Market Leader, DPR Construction   "There’s a necessity for early engagement and ensuring the whole team understands the logic behind prefabrication to avoid gaps in execution." 

   

  🎧 Don’t Miss This Episode If You’re a…

  • Healthcare executive managing capital planning and cash flow

  • Construction leader looking to standardize and scale faster

  • Clinician or facilities director focused on optimizing day-to-day operations