Rising healthcare facility demands pave way for innovation

The pandemic and the years since have highlighted Australia’s severe nursing shortages, with research indicating we could face a shortfall of 100,000 nurses by 2025, creating a need for more — and more modern — facilities to house them and support Australian communities.

Meeting this challenge requires a multipronged approach centred on policy, people and property. In addition, there are a range of promising initiatives and developments across the sector and state and federal governments.

For example, the federal and Victorian governments have partnered and engaged with all states and territories and the nursing profession to develop the nation’s first National Nursing Workforce Strategy, which aims to equip, enable and support the delivery of care and aged care that the Australian population needs.

As part of its historic aged care reforms, the federal government recently reaffirmed its commitment from its Aged Care Taskforce Response to support a range of investments and changes to ensure residential aged care providers have the funds they need to invest in residents’ comfort, keeping facilities open and building new facilities in areas of need.

Meanwhile, in Victoria, the government’s Regional and Metropolitan Health Infrastructure Funds are delivering more than $1 billion combined to improve the safety and quality of services, enhance service capacity and efficiency, and provide other benefits across Melbourne and regional Victoria. 

With modern design, construction, engineering and healthcare technology built in from the start, new facilities will stand out from facilities of the past, with a range of state-of-the-art features, some of which will be directly observed by patients and clinical staff, while others operate in the background but improve experiences for all in the environment.

However, while new facilities can have a monumental impact on Australia’s health care, the demands we face mean we cannot neglect the extensive existing network of facilities we have in place. Many likely need significant upgrades to meet modern standards and broader strategic objectives.

Fortunately, modern innovation isn’t exclusive to future sites — there are examples of facilities improvements and safely building new state-of-the-art facilities within live hospital environments.

One such example is the cell and gene therapy Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) manufacturing facility operated by Cell Therapies, co-located with the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. Cell Therapies manufactures ‘living’ cell-based therapies for clinical trials enabling access to innovative therapies for Australian patients with cancer, rare diseases and other serious medical conditions. The facility is Australia’s only biomedical manufacturing facility where therapies such as CAR T cells can be produced at commercial scale to help treat patients in Australia and the region.

The facility’s building management technologies are purpose-built to address the ecosystem’s unique needs. Innovations include:

• a new building management system to assist in controlling energy and capturing data to remain compliant with stringent healthcare and pharmaceutical requirements;
• new operational technology to assist in the protection of scientists’ critical work;
• environmental management and monitoring systems to help keep air temperature and humidity at optimal levels; and  
• redundancy of critical mechanical services for each of the facility’s cleanrooms.
   

The facility is a testament to the customised capabilities building automation technologies can deliver to organisations across Australia’s healthcare and life sciences industry that are working to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.

The benefits of these technologies also go far beyond improving health care and the experience of workers, patients and visitors within healthcare facilities. 

They can help support vital sustainability initiatives by reducing the carbon footprint of healthcare facilities. Buildings account for a staggering 37% of carbon emissions, and the healthcare industry is believed to be responsible for between 4.4 and 5.2%.

Further, integrating building management, life safety and security systems in one place can provide greater data and insights, enhanced physical and cyber security, and increased operational efficiency as Australia builds and retrofits the healthcare facilities we need for our future.

The unprecedented healthcare challenges we’ve experienced in the last five years, coupled with the clear and present challenges that lie ahead in terms of healthcare demand, should make the accelerated deployment of these technologies a national priority.

If successful, we can maintain Australia’s proud position as a global leader in health care and remain an attractive location for healthcare clinicians and researchers to work, live, and develop new treatments and therapies to save and improve lives.

Image caption: Lisa Whitehead, Vice President and General Manager, Pacific, Honeywell Building Automation. Image: Supplied.