Frank Schaffarczyk
Program DirectorCambridge CMA 20-year veteran of project management and real estate development. Frank is a strategic leader who builds high-performing teams. He specializes in developing practical systems that improve team morale, focus, and effectiveness. His work as a Program Director for Cambridge Construction Management on major projects like the $3.7B California Tower and the outpatient surgery center,48X, for UC Davis Health have been a proving ground for these principles. Frank leverages his extensive background in project controls, financial modeling, and change management to guide large-scale projects and empower the people who drive them.
E63 – Advocating for End Users in Large Healthcare Capital Programs
Large healthcare capital projects routinely face late-stage user-driven changes that emerge during construction. These changes consume contingency and…Large healthcare capital projects routinely face late-stage user-driven changes that emerge during construction. These changes consume contingency and limit decision-making flexibility at the most expensive phases of delivery. While such requests are…Large healthcare capital projects routinely face late-stage user-driven changes that emerge during construction. These changes consume contingency and limit decision-making flexibility at the most expensive phases of delivery. While such requests are often unavoidable in complex clinical environments, a program-level approach is critical to effectively advocate for the User groups who will ultimately be operating the facility (such as IT, Operati…Large healthcare capital projects routinely face late-stage user-driven changes that emerge during construction. These changes consume contingency and limit decision-making flexibility at the most expensive phases of delivery. While such requests are often unavoidable in complex clinical environments, a program-level approach is critical to effectively advocate for the User groups who will ultimately be operating the facility (such as IT, Operations and Maintenance, Medical Equipment, Operating Rooms, Clinics, Pharmacy, and Imaging). The UC Davis Health California Tower team (a $3.7billion, 375-bed healthcare project) analyzed user-initiated change request data from prior projects (the 48X project and the Folsom Medical Office Building), to identify recurring drivers of late-stage changes and examined how cost impacts varied by project phase. These projects involved similar clinical functions and user groups; thus, the learnings from the programmatic analysis helped the team anticipate future user needs and stay data-driven. These efforts led to the establishment of a triage process for our California Tower project. The Project Change Request (PCR) triage process is designed to initially route user-driven requests through a highly engaged Owner, CM, and user group forum. This approach effectively: a. makes user group involvement structured and predictable, b. helps project teams improve decision turnaround times on high-risk user needs with a rough order magnitude impact evaluation approach that can be presented for executive and governance committee reviews, c. preserves contingency depletion rate by setting annual target thresholds, d. decouples the GC during early evaluation e. keeps GC involvement on an as-needed study basis rather than defaulting to immediate pricing and losing construction momentum. Speakers from UC Davis Health, Cambridge CM, SmithGroup, and McCarthy Building Companies will present on this approach that large healthcare capital programs can undertake to practically leverage historical change data, implement a scalable PCR triage approach, and strengthen user advocacy while maintaining cost and schedule targets. Show MoreClick the title to see all detailsShow More
