(Second of two parts)

IRVINE, CA—Mary Beth Kuzmanovich, recently brought on board at Colliers International to serve as the firm's first-ever national director, healthcare services, sees the sector as one of both opportunities and challenges both for Colliers and for the industry in general. In part one of this two-part interview, she surveyed the landscape as the industry adjusts to the new reality brought on by the Affordable Care Act. Here, she discusses how her new employer is addressing that new reality.

GlobeSt.com: As you've joined Colliers as national director, what are some of its near-term initiatives for the healthcare platform?

Mary Beth Kuzmanovich: Colliers has two very strong focuses that make its healthcare platform robust. First, the company has built a strong team of healthcare real; estate brokers. There are more than 80 across the country. They have been in a broker-led practice group, and the goal of creating the position that I now have was to bring some greater structure and opportunity to leverage the talent that we have across the country. So it's a great opportunity to build on the healthcare practice that has now been in place for more than eight years.

The second thing the company's doing that makes this very well positioned for healthcare is focusing internal resources on the occupier client and on the investor client. Looking at the occupier, whether that's a healthcare system or a physician practice, it's being able to bring services to them on evaluations, property management and consulting services to help them understand how to use their real estate more effectively.

With the investor client, our brokers and capital markets people bring a great understanding of investors' needs for that steady, creditworthy tenant and stable, long lease term, and being able to identify opportunities to secure buildings that come to market and meet those investor criteria. That focus companywide on the occupier client and investor client fits into healthcare very well, because healthcare crosses into both of those unique client bases.

GlobeSt.com: Does the fact that the company has decided to formalize the healthcare platform speak to how integral healthcare real estate is to any service firm, and also to how specialized a sector it is?

Kuzmanovich: Bringing on the whole service line approach for healthcare demonstrates the tremendous commitment Colliers is making to the sector. Certainly, creating my role as a national leader is one very visible step. But it's also a matter of aligning the services within Colliers to meet the unique needs of that healthcare client.

So the brokers, in understanding lease and sales transaction requirements, are unique to healthcare. In property management, cleaning a general office building has requirements, but medical office brings some unique aspects with hazardous waste and medical waste, and patient confidentiality that has to blow over into the way you take out trash. They sound like small sensitivities, but they're very important to that healthcare client. The focus of Colliers, across that service line, is being to able leverage the existing base of talent and the existing services within the company to meet those unique needs.