Don't shoot the messenter: master facilities planning for the hospital

The acute care medical/surgical (somatic) hospital is among the most politicized, scrutinized, technically complex and increasingly expensive of building types within the infrastructure of civilized live. Unless well prepared, hospitals will generally continue to evolve haphazardly and expensively to become accretions of macro and micro renovations and additions. companion and servant to a hospital's overall Strategic Plan, a Master Facilities Plan should be an eminently accessible ongoing document for charging a hospital's facilities policy. It should be designed to assure continuity so that facilities responses to short term and term goals will remain compatible, complimentary and inherently flexible over time. The techniques employed in master planning for hospitals will vary with the planners, the clients and the agendas of governmental regulators. Although some unfavourable information concerning the condition of existing facilities is surely to be anticipated, especially for older buildings, how clearly that information is presented and then creatively resolved is often at the core of fine Master Facilities Planning.