HGA Eyes Greater Stake in Healthcare

WASHINGTON, DC-HGA Architects and Engineers has hired Thomas P. Forde, as a healthcare project manager and medical planner in the Mid-Atlantic office. A 25-year industry veteran, Forde's role will be to identify new business opportunities, manage client relations and lead project teams through all phases of design development. He is the second appointment in this group; the first being Rolf K. Haarstad, associate vice president and Healthcare principal in HGA's Washington, D.C. office. Haarstad was brought on board in February and in the interim the regional office has become more bullish about the opportunities available in the health care real estate sector as its local pipeline has increased. "When I came aboard the national presence had been successful in landing couple of major clients in the region," he explains. HGA differentiates itself in the market with its front-end services, he explains. "We are extremely rigorous in process improvement and integrated project delivery." Different opportunities are coming to the market now, Haarstad notes, due to the Affordable Health Care Act. "The whole paradigm of health care prior to the Affordable Health Care Act was one based on volume –hospitals got paid by putting patients in beds. Now the shift in care disincentives that – the system now focuses on the outcome and trying to reduce number of sick people." As a result the health care systems will spread out into the community more and be less centralized, he says. "There will be smaller projects and health care systems in general are getting smarter about money."