‘Common language’ needed for better hospital planning

Speaking at the International Federation of Healthcare Engineering’s 2022 Congress in Toronto, IHEEM’s CEO, Pete Sellars, and President, Paul Fenton, argued that the planning and construction of ‘siloed’ hospitals ‘is over’. Their key point was that ‘the way we measure hospital workload is outmoded – what matters now is the wider health and social care system: there is no such thing as a good hospital; there is only a hospital that is good for the system’. They presented a very different model for future healthcare planning

Pete Sellars and the then IHEEM President, Paul Fenton MBE, delivered their message on the need for a major shift in thinking on healthcare planning in an hour-long opening keynote address, titled ‘A common language for planning and design of new hospitals’, on the first morning of the 27th IFHE Congress, which took place from 17-21 September at the Westin Harbour Hotel in Toronto. When I spoke to the IHEEM CEO a few days later, he admitted that they had initially not been sure – given the potential language barrier, with delegates attending from many countries where English is not the first language, and with very different clinical and estates practices and terminologies employed worldwide – how clearly their message would resonate. 

A fantastic response