Optimize Your Healthcare Facilities for Better Patient and Portfolio Outcomes

The healthcare landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by healthcare equity, population health and the need to address the social determinants of health. As a result, integrated health systems are evolving their real estate and facilities strategies to prioritize financial and operational excellence, workforce enablement, regulatory compliance, sustainability, technology innovation, and community engagement. To thrive, health systems must develop integrated care programs, expand services and improve financial transparency and efficiency.

By adopting an integrated approach to managing their real estate portfolios, healthcare systems can strike a balance between acute and non-acute care delivery, both on and off campus, and position themselves for sustainable growth in a value-based care model.

An Integrated Strategy Includes These Components

1. Integrated Facilities Management
   An integrated approach to facilities management is crucial for delivering timely, efficient and cost-effective maintenance, ensuring that essential preventative and reactive maintenance is performed consistently across all asset types and locations. By adopting a unified model, real estate leaders can unlock greater flexibility and scalability, enabling them to respond quickly to changing needs and priorities. Enhancing your service delivery strategy with smart building systems and AI enables predictive and real-time decision-making and will drive additional value-creation outcomes, including energy reduction, asset reliability, resource allocation and an enhanced patient, visitor and staff experience.
2. Strategic Site Selection for Non-Acute Facilities
   Site selection is a critical success factor, particularly for non-acute facilities. A well-planned approach can drive operational efficiency, enhance patient access and foster long-term growth. Strategic site selection helps prioritize locations that align with an organization's goals and considers key factors such as local demographics, accessibility, competition and incentives. Advanced location intelligence tools enable data-driven decision making, empowering real estate teams to improve capital planning and maximize returns from portfolio optimization. Regular reviews of new and existing locations are essential to stay ahead of market trends, inform strategic decisions and determine the best course of action for expansion, consolidation, or divestment.
3. Occupancy Planning for Acute Care
   Effective occupancy planning is integral to the smooth operation of acute healthcare facilities. It optimizes space utilization, aligns clinical services, and enhances patient flow. By accurately predicting patient volume, facilities can efficiently manage key resources such as staff, equipment and rooms. Ultimately, robust occupancy planning enhances patient care quality, increases operational efficiency and aids in cost management.

For integrated health systems, measuring performance across the real estate portfolio is essential to overcome top challenges, including cost management, capital planning and portfolio optimization. A holistic approach to data and analytics provides a single, unified view of performance, ensuring consistency, accuracy and transparency across all facilities. This enables real estate and facilities leaders to optimize operations, identify areas for improvement and align facilities management with long-term business objectives.

Real Estate Success Metrics to Drive Accessible, Efficient and Quality Healthcare

1. Quality and Compliance
   Quality and compliance metrics are paramount, serving as a benchmark for delivering measurable, high-quality patient care and safety. Adhering to these metrics ensures that healthcare facilities operate within established regulations, such as those set by various accreditation organizations. By meeting these standards, facilities will comply with regulations and demonstrate a commitment to healthcare excellence. These metrics objectively evaluate a facility’s performance, enabling continuous improvement and fostering trust and confidence among patients and their families.
2. Healthcare Accreditation Scores
   Accreditation scores evaluate the quality and safety of healthcare facilities across various accreditation organizations. High scores reflect a health system’s commitment to delivering exceptional care, adhering to industry standards and continuously improving patient services. Increasing scores enhances credibility, attracts more patients and can lead to better reimbursement rates from insurance providers.
3. STARK Law and Anti-Kickback Statute Compliance
   Integrated health systems can ensure compliance with the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute for their non-acute facilities by implementing robust policies for lease agreements and real estate transactions, conducting regular training and maintaining detailed documentation of all financial arrangements. For joint venture transactions, real estate teams should engage legal counsel during due diligence and establish transparent reporting to mitigate legal and financial risks while promoting transparent real estate operations.

Policymakers and communities expect integrated health systems to take an increasingly active role in addressing population health and social determinants of health, causing a significant shift in care delivery. Organizations—and their real estate teams—that successfully navigate challenges while adapting to this shift will drive transformative outcomes in access, experience and sustainable growth.

For real estate teams, this means effectively managing costs and strategically allocating capital while optimizing their portfolios to ensure they provide the right services in the right locations under the right economics. This approach maximizes the total economic value of occupancy (TEVO) and allows health systems, patients, staff and communities to thrive.

Leverage the Power of Your Integrated Healthcare Facilities To Overcome These Top Challenges

1. Cost Management
   As integrated health systems transition to value-based care, real estate leaders face pressure to reduce OPEX and total cost of occupancy (TCO). To combat this challenge, CRE leaders need to implement effective cost management strategies, such as integrating and consolidating facilities maintenance, process standardization of service delivery and regular financial audits, to ensure optimal utilization of resources and facilities. By doing so, health systems can invest in innovative care models, focus on preventive care and adapt to changing state policies—enhancing financial performance, operational efficiency and long-term resiliency.
2. Portfolio Optimization
   Given the capital-intensive nature and long planning lead times of healthcare facilities, real estate leaders must adopt a dynamic portfolio optimization strategy to keep pace with industry shifts and evolving community needs. This requires ensuring services are placed in the right locations with the right financial models, guided by TEVO. Real estate teams should leverage portfolio diagnostics to assess how clinical locations align with strategic goals, utilize data-driven tools for market analysis and refine TEVO calculations by incorporating patient and real estate revenues against operational expenses.
3. Capital Planning
   Balancing capital investments between infrastructure maintenance and strategic growth is critical for long-term organizational success. A structured, multi-year capital allocation plan—supported by standardized evaluation criteria and performance metrics—enables real estate teams to align investment decisions with the organization’s mission and financial capacity. By taking a portfolio-based approach, health systems can enhance facility maintenance, allocate resources more effectively and ensure capital investments support both operational reliability and long-term strategic growth.

CBRE Healthcare views caregiving environments through the lens of the real estate and facility lifecycle—and we understand the built environment's essential role in delivering outstanding patient experiences. From developing real estate strategies that support health systems' mission and business objectives to the ongoing operations of complex care facilities, CBRE Healthcare holds the expertise and experience that builds an advantage for integrated health systems. We aim to partner with clients to create and maintain healing environments that improve patient outcomes and build healthier communities.

End-to-End Solutions to Optimize Your Portfolio

1. Integrated Facilities Management
   We provide world-class, integrated facility management operations and support to integrated health system portfolios, leveraging people, processes and connected technology. Our service delivery model gives clients access to the industry's largest and most reliable data repository to revolutionize facility performance, process and expenses. We achieve increased efficiency and operational reliability while reducing carbon and lowering costs with connected building automation, IoT and data analytics solutions. Learn more.
2. First-Generation Outsourcing
   At CBRE, our clients focus on what they do best while we concentrate on optimizing their facilities and real estate to empower them. CBRE’s customized solutions, industry-leading best practices and change-management process ensure organizations outsourcing for the first time move seamlessly from one operating model to the other, providing greater opportunities for their people, partners and properties at every step. Learn more.
3. Project Management and Project Management Office (PMO)
   Our team uses an optimized service delivery process to manage every aspect of your project's budget, schedule and scope and protect your interests throughout the real estate life cycle. The Project & Program Management Office (PMO) is an extension of your organization to standardize and provide project-related governance across a defined program, geography or region. This centralized control results in a collaborative environment with consistent project execution, supply chain management, rigorous fiscal governance and a commitment to innovation. Learn more.
4. Campus Master Planning
   CBRE's Campus Master Planning is a strategic approach to managing and developing healthcare facilities. It involves an in-depth analysis of existing facilities, resources and future needs to create a comprehensive and strategic plan for the growth and development of healthcare campuses. Our process optimizes space utilization, adapts to market dynamics, improves operational efficiency, enhances patient experience and ensures regulatory compliance.
5. Supply Chain
   Our robust supplier network ensures competitive pricing, resilience and access to best-in-class resources. Our global scale enables strategic partnerships with industry-leading suppliers, driving innovation and creating value for our clients. We continuously evaluate market pricing through competitive sourcing events and benchmarking to deliver cost savings. Learn more.
6. Energy Management & Sustainability
   Energy management represents a significant opportunity for healthcare organizations. Our globally consistent programming in decarbonization solutions, renewable energy and electrical vehicle charging stations can help healthcare providers support carbon reduction and net zero commitments to achieve their sustainability goals. Learn more.
7. Healthcare Consulting
   CBRE’s Healthcare Consulting experts deliver insightful, data-driven solutions to optimize healthcare operations and facilities. Our team of experienced professionals leverage deep industry knowledge and cutting-edge technology to enhance operational efficiency, improve space utilization and reduce costs. We provide comprehensive support to healthcare organizations seeking to achieve their goals and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape. Learn more.
8. Intelligent Site Selection with Dimension
   Dimension combines exclusive data, CBRE market knowledge, and your health system’s requirements to animate the art and science of real estate decision-making with market evaluation scorecards and business planning templates, site-selection scoring models, proprietary GIS modeling and optimization algorithms and healthcare market intelligence insights. The insights generated from Dimension and input from our local real estate advisors are key to positioning your healthcare organization to provide the right clinical services in the best locations with advantageous economic terms. Learn more.