Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is one of the hottest topics in healthcare project delivery today. Through the use of a single project contract, signed by the owner, design team, constructor, and major construction trades it promises any number of benefits to participants, including:

• construction cost savings for owners;
• improved communication among project participants;
• alignment of motivation among typically differently motivated project participants;
• significant financial rewards for cooperative team players through cost and time savings in project delivery methods and materials; and,
• acceleration of the project delivery schedule through improved coordination among the various design and construction entities.

Recognizing the potential benefit to project team members using this innovative approach the AIA is crafting a new set of documents designed to help Architects enter this relatively new contracting territory with the measured risk that standardized contracts can offer.

Although well tested in other areas of construction, IPD is relatively new to healthcare. Examples of completed healthcare projects that used an IPD contract are scarce. Herein lies the central learning opportunity in this presentation. Very little is understood about how this approach to contracting could work in healthcare. It seems to hold considerable promise, but is largely untested. One well known project is underway with a large West Coast healthcare system that has chosen to use an IPD approach, but the project is still in its earliest stages, and examples of other healthcare IPD projects are scarce.


In part 1 a construction law specialist attorney will present the theoretical value propositions for firms to participate in an IPD. The possibilities for rewards will be fully explained along with the motivations that would align project participants to actually achieve those rewards. Although theoretical this part of the presentation will clearly articulate the possibilities with IPD.

In part 2 the results of a survey will be presented. Working with capital project management consultants experienced with IPD approaches to construction in other non-healthcare fields a survey will be conducted among various participants in actual IPD contracted projects. The point of this is to explore what some of the results have been for firms that dared to try this innovative project delivery method and to outline what the possible value proposition might be for healthcare projects using this same approach.

The contrast between the theoretical promise of value and the actual results from completed or in-process projects should be particularly instructive to healthcare organizations considering this approach to project delivery. For example:

• Did the team members cooperate sufficiently to achieve the bonuses that were part of the promise when the contract began?

• What was the hardest part about learning to trust someone with whom you had never worked and depending on them to help you achieve your bonus?

• How well did the team work when the project leadership was by a group not by an individual?

• Even if it worked as planned, is this approach better than one with which we are already familiar?

• How did the owner feel about paying performance bonuses?

• Was the bonus so small that the team was not motivated to achieve their bonus possibility, or was the bonus so large that the team members were tempted to cut corners in order to ensure that their bonus was awarded?

• Would the team members participate in a similar arrangement again? What lessons were learned that would have to be a part of the "next" IPD contract in order for them to want to participate again?

In part 3, after panelists have outlined the theoretical and actual aspects of IPD, a construction management expert will offer suggestions on ways to achieve the greatest value in an IPD contract situation.

After formal remarks a vigorous Q&A session will occur.