Creating Resilience
Portfolio Strategy in Healthcare Real Estate: Using Data to Achieve Success
June 11, 2025 2 Minute Read
Real estate plays a crucial role in the delivery of healthcare services. The physical location, architectural design and aesthetics of healthcare facilities impact numerous metrics including patient access, operational efficiency and patient and staff satisfaction. The healthcare industry has faced numerous recent challenges, including rising costs, changing patient demographics, evolving healthcare delivery models and navigating mergers and acquisitions. These challenges necessitate a strategic approach to managing healthcare real estate portfolios.
A robust portfolio strategy and strategic planning can lead to operational and financial improvements, creating value for the healthcare organization and enhancing value for patients
What is portfolio strategy?
Portfolio strategy involves the systematic planning and management of a healthcare organization's real estate assets and includes four key considerations: facility, market, utilization and real estate dynamics. An effective portfolio strategy ensures that healthcare facilities are functional and appealing, optimally located, efficiently utilized and financially sustainable—in other words, “right place, right space and right price.” This approach maximizes network coverage, optimizes space utilization and lowers the total cost of occupancy through data synthesis, actionable recommendations and business plan development.
Data-driven decision-making is essential in developing a successful roadmap for near-term and long-term portfolio moves such as renew or blend-and-extend leases, close locations and exit markets or open new locations. Software, tools and methodologies can enable healthcare organizations to quickly and effectively analyze real estate portfolio insights based on various factors. These variables should be customized to align with an organization’s strategic goals to ensure the recommendations support and enable the mission and vision.
What is the first step in developing a portfolio strategy?
A successful strategy starts with compiling an accurate list of critical portfolio data, such as location, occupiers, ownership or leasing information and other facility metrics. The data analysis maxim “garbage in, garbage out” sounds simple, but collecting clear portfolio information is not always easy. Leases are continually changing, occupiers move and maintaining up-to-date data can be challenging, particularly for organizations with a sizeable portfolio or where mergers and acquisitions are underway, and data accessibility alone can be an undertaking.
Assessing the Data
With complete portfolio metrics in place, a team analyzes the data and facilities according to factors such as aesthetic and functional criteria (facility and experience), volume and utilization (capacity), physical location criteria (market), and financial real estate dynamics (market base rate).
Using data and analytics, the goal should be to streamline decision-making, with software and methodology providing an initial recommendation, which the team validates to include other strategic human factors. This process can be used both for evaluating the current portfolio as well as identifying or evaluating strategic plans to expand, close or relocate.
Making Recognizable Gains
The final step in an effective portfolio strategy is a roadmap to guide the organization on next steps each year, including recommendations on potential facility improvements, lease renewals, addition of new sites and management of existing sites. Synthesizing assessments of facility, market, utilization and real estate dynamics into a well-executed portfolio strategy roadmap shows an organization where to prioritize their time and dollars.
This strategic approach ensures facilities are aligned with market demand and organizational goals, and underpinning these decisions with objective information is key to generating a compelling business case.
Strategic portfolio management leads to not only improved financial performance but also supports mission and vision goals such as increased patient access by delivering the right care in the right place.
What’s next?
By leveraging data and analytics, healthcare organizations can develop a baseline roadmap of strategic portfolio moves and next steps, remove the guesswork and more easily manage the portfolio all while staying aligned with the mission and vision. A strategic approach to real estate management will become even more crucial as the healthcare industry continues to evolve, consolidate through mergers and acquisitions and face rising costs. Emerging trends in healthcare portfolio strategy will shape the way healthcare organizations plan and manage their facilities, ultimately improving patient care and organizational success.
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Stevie Bander
Managing Director, Americas Consulting | Healthcare
