Healthcare is modifying to meet consumer demand in communities and in rural areas and is seeing changes with the implementation of telemedicine, medical office buildings in retail space, community hospitals and clinics, urgent care and dialysis centers. In a recent breakout session at the 2020 CREW Network Convention, panelists focused on how these modifications are impacting commercial real estate and talked about the impact of Covid on the healthcare system.

When asked if healthcare was recession proof, Lorie Damon, managing director of the healthcare advisory practice at Cushman & Wakefield, said that historically, yes, it has been recession proof, noting that in general, healthcare makes up nearly 20% and 16 million employees and the real estate emanating out of that is fairly substantial with a best guess being around 3 billion square feet.

But consumer spending on healthcare services has dropped pretty significantly in the first quarter, she said. "After an almost uninterrupted increase over the past 30 years, spending dropped off. If patients didn't have to go, they didn't. The result was a steep drop in employment at dentists, doctors' offices etc. from February to April."