Consultant's careful planning precedes hopsital relocation

Imagine moving a large business.

There are phone and computer networks, equipment, supplies and furniture to buy and set up.

There are customers to notify, hundreds of employees to train and the construction of new buildings to oversee.

Now imagine accomplishing all this, knowing that any interruptions in service could cost people their lives.

This is the undertaking of Carson-Tahoe Hospital officials as they prepare for the hospital's move to a new $132 million regional medical center under construction on 70 acres on the north edge of Carson City.

Although the new center won't open for another 18 months, the planning for the transition is well under way.

Intense preparation is essential because moving any business, particularly a hospital, is full of risk yet comes with only one chance to do it right, says James Verhey, president of Normandale Associates in Reno, a relocation and transition management consulting firm working with Carson-Tahoe.

One of the most common pitfalls of moving a business is underestimating the scope.Without outside help, business leaders inexperienced with moving tend to focus on the construction and the physical move, Verhey says.

But they need to spend at least 12 to 18 months planning how they will operate in the new facility.

"A hospital is almost like a city in itself," Verhey says.Managing the replacement or expansion of a hospital "amounts to activating up to 25 to 35 separate businesses all at the same time, without the luxury of downtime." Adding to the complexity is that each of those entities is related to the whole, so any changes must be made within the context of the entire system.

Just the mere physical logistics boggle the layman's mind.

The food service, for instance, can't be shuttered completely in the old location before all the patients are moved.

But the patients can't be moved before the food service is up and running in the new location.

Although some office staff can start working in the new medical center a few weeks early to test the building, a gradual transition of patients and medical services to the new center isn't practical.

It would be too confusing to the public if the hospital were running in both locations at once, Verhey says.

Therefore, patients must be transferred in a single day, and in the public's eye, the transition from old to new happens overnight.

Meanwhile, everything should work in the old location until the last patient leaves and everything should work in the new location before the first patient arrives.What if something goes wrong? Team leaders ask themselves this throughout the process and strive to plan for every contingency.

Verhey compares the process to an opera production.

All the parts musicians, singers, director, scenery and audience must come together to create a production, which will get critiqued by critics unaware of the effort that went into making it all happen.

Planning a transition often requires an organization to change how it manages projects.

Many companies' automatic first response to an upcoming move, for instance, is to appoint a relocation committee.

But committees can lead to group-think and a lack of accountability, Verhey says.

"When everyone is involved with everything, no one is really involved with anything." Instead, he prescribes the appointment of specialists to take charge and be accountable for certain areas.

The specialists then delegate to teams, and the management sets up a mechanism for followup to make sure everything gets done.

"It's almost a military structure," Verhey says.

Leaders also create a project overview handbook, which becomes the bible of the project and helps prevent wrong assumptions.

Meanwhile, training employees and keeping communication lines open are essential because moving creates opportunities for long-term improvements to an organization.

"This is more than a move," says Carson-Tahoe Chief Operating Officer Kevin Stansbury.

"We're changing culture, and changing the relationships of how departments relate to one another.

It's really important for the people to grasp the cultural changes that will take place." Verhey, who has a background in health-care administration, has been doing transition consulting since 1978.

His three-member firm has worked with almost four dozen hospitals, university medical centers and clinics nationwide, as well as research and technology centers, education and corporate facilities and government facilities, including the Nevada Supreme Court Building and Nevada State Library in Carson City.

He says Carson-Tahoe Hospital is an ideal client because it started the transition planning more than two years in advance.

Stansbury says Verhey's firm brings the ability to look at the process in depth from beginning to end.

"It could be overwhelming, but we have such a great team working together, it's a joy," he says.