Todd Foos

While design teams routinely analyze life cycle costs for building systems and infrastructure, pairing these evaluations with clinical and operational considerations allows projects to achieve greater long-term value and financial success. Rather than “adding design cost” to projects, operationally informed design represents a strategic investment: asking the right questions early, generating creative design solutions, and coordinating across design and construction disciplines to minimize long-term operational expenses and inefficiencies. By embedding operational and clinical perspectives early in the project process, design teams can positively influence the performance of behavioral health facilities — reducing friction and misalignment between operations and design intent, elevating patient and staff experiences, improving clinical outcomes, and lowering operating costs of facilities. 

In this session, presenters with clinical, design, and construction backgrounds in behavioral health will define what it means to be “operationally and clinically informed” in their respective fields and present real-world project examples of how thoughtful design decisions drive long-term value operationally. Attendees will learn how to reframe design not as a one-time capital expenditure, but as a tool for unlocking long-term operational value from pre-design through construction.