Building Tomorrow’s Healthcare Construction Leaders

Aurora Ildefonso, a Sacramento-based DPR project manager, had done plenty of work on healthcare projects in her career. Renowned for her commitment to going the extra mile, Aurora consistently ensures that her work not only establishes clear project schedules but also provides owners with vital transparency regarding change orders. However, her perspective shifted to a more people-centric approach after taking part in DPR’s inaugural Healthcare Fellowship program, which aims to enhance builders' understanding of the intricate business dynamics within the spaces they construct.

This transformative experience allowed participants to appreciate not just the technical aspects of construction but also the profound impact that thoughtful execution and collaboration have on the patients, staff and communities served by healthcare facilities.

“As part of our research for the Fellowship, we asked customers what ‘going the extra mile’ meant to them,” Ildefonso said. “A lot of their feedback was focused on communication, and we, as builders, can foster relationships that can improve patient and caregiver satisfaction. That doesn’t mean schedule and getting the details right aren’t important, but it showed me that taking care of human beings is really part of the value we can deliver.”

For the program’s 23 participants from across the country, these insights were a transformative part of the program. In addition to learning about the use of clinical spaces and researching unique healthcare construction challenges, the main outcome of the program was to help build the next generation of leading healthcare builders.

“The environments we build in are unique,” said Hamilton Espinosa, one of DPR’s healthcare core market leaders. “Every healthcare project has its own set of variables that have to be addressed. Just building what the drawings say to do is not going to necessarily mean a successful project. We have the opportunity to connect our teams to the knowledge DPR has from decades of healthcare work that help truly make great project outcomes.”

“There’s a lot of new technology coming,” said Katie Gutzwiller, a DPR project manager. “That affects projects, how healthcare providers care for patients and the workflows inside their facilities. That all has ramifications for healthcare construction. A well-equipped GC team that understands the challenges and complexities can assist with coordinating different stakeholders.”

Few markets have been as affected by outside factors as the healthcare market. Heavily reliant on insurance and Medicare reimbursements, healthcare systems have struggled with margins while handling staff and caregiver burnout, shifting consumer preferences and even a global pandemic.

“Capital budgets are constrained, so certainty in knowing the estimated final cost of construction and timelines for construction helps influence decisions,” said one of DPR’s national customers who helped support the fellowship. Those pressures can get passed along in different ways to contractors.

“The biggest thing I have seen in the last 10 years, is healthcare owners wanting more out of contractors,” said Sam Brinton, a Richmond-based DPR project manager and Fellowship participant. “They’re looking for more design validation, more constructability reviews…project complexity is increasing, and contractors are no longer just responsible for building structures; they are becoming integral partners in the entire lifecycle of healthcare projects—from planning and design to operations and maintenance. They’re not the types of things I studied in school, and they’re not necessarily what you learn day to day on a jobsite.”

In response to these trends, DPR launched the Fellowship in 2024. Kicking off in February, the program culminated with capstone presentations by five cohort groups, each tackling a current issue in healthcare construction. Along the way, the teams got to work with tenured healthcare builders, designers, and health care professionals, sharing knowledge that can be put to work and scaled much more quickly than simply letting individuals gain experience through years of project work.

"We’re not just coming in there and constructing a facility,” Gutzwiller said. “We’re transforming the lives that benefit from the care as well as those that deliver the care in the wellbeing sense. We’re helping providers with emerging technology and identifying the gaps between design and turnover phases that often get overlooked.”

The program was set up to help close those knowledge gaps. DeAndre Thomas-Howard, a DPR assistant superintendent in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, said the program helped address another gap.

“To me it’s the coordination gap,” Thomas-Howard said. “It’s easy as a builder to take a more analytical approach when the owner just wants to see drywall installed. We have to go deeper and understand the customer’s goals and expectations. Suppose we’re building a procedure room, we might have an engineering vendor that simply wants to come in and get the work done. We have to know enough to be the bridge between the work and the ‘why’ behind it, helping make recommendations that make things work smoothly for everyone affected by the work.”

Today, participants are looking at putting their knowledge to work and, in doing so, unlocking new possibilities for their customers, the clinical workforce, and the patients they support.

“Our project teams are going have a better understanding of what they need to accomplish,” Thomas-Howard said. “Teams are going to have better alignment with healthcare system goals, and that is going to help every aspect of delivery. Think about driving home speed to market. If we’re even better prepared to help a provider expand their services, it will make a huge difference to the community they serve.”

Ildefonso sees similar potential: “Anyone can put together an estimate, but once you have operations experience, you can bring lessons learned to the preconstruction side, citing past projects with key considerations that helped drive success. This program helped us make those connections.”

This sentiment was echoed by healthcare organizations participating in the program.

“This program helps familiarize DPR's staff with terminology and understanding of the processes that are unique to healthcare,” one health provider said. “Unlike some other industries, for example, healthcare construction needs to prioritize the patient's safety, not necessarily the first cost of construction.”

Brinton added: “A major benefit I see is sharing resources. It helps us show a provider that it’s not just our local team’s knowledge applied when you’re working with us. The Fellowship has helped us find new ways to leverage the knowledge from the entire company and connect those resources to the health organizations here in our local market.”