Sellen Construction is one of the largest general contractors in the Seattle area, and we've made staying local a key part of our success. We're within 40 minutes from our farthest project, and, over the years, many of those work sites have been healthcare-related. Seattle is the medical hub of the entire Pacific Northwest, attracting patients as far away as Alaska and Montana to its many hospitals and medical centers. We're fortunate to have been a big part of that growth.
Our position has given us a unique ability to understand future trends in healthcare construction. It's going to be smaller, more efficient and less expensive to build than in the past. We're not likely to see many, if any, brand-new bed wings or hospital campuses anytime soon.
As healthcare has evolved, we've employed many innovations that have helped reduce construction costs. One of the biggest developments in recent years has been the adoption of prefabrication. For medical facilities, this means plumbers, electricians, drywallers and welders work off-site to build components such as headwalls and other features with all the electrical, gas, plumbing and nurse call lines integrated into a "plug and play" element. It's not only faster to build this way, but it's also safer, less expensive and results in higher quality.
Prefabrication has been big in Europe and Asia for quite some time, and the United States has generally taken longer to adapt. But there are innovative examples of these techniques being used across the country. For the newly built Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, crews assembled 750 free-standing bathrooms in a warehouse two blocks from the construction site. They arrived with the fixtures and finishes in place and the water, electrical, heat and air conditioning lines ready to be hooked up.
I catch up with hospital executives and administrators on a regular basis. The one thing I've heard repeatedly from administrators is that they have to deliver better results at a lower cost. Reimbursements drive a lot of their strategy, and the rules are changing. We've been seeing this trend since long before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but health reform has introduced even more uncertainty into the mix. Dollars for new construction have further shrunk as hospitals invest hundreds of millions into switching to electronic medical records.
As a result, we're not seeing many big hospital projects anymore. Construction of new campuses or bed wings is slowing dramatically. Instead, we're seeing the rise of outpatient-focused projects, including medical office buildings. And here, too, hospital executives are looking for creative ways to reduce construction expenses as the relentless pressure on healthcare costs continues.
Sellen recently helped cut the ribbon on a project just north of Seattle that embodies the latest trends.
Providence Medical Group's Monroe Clinic is nearly twice the size of the clinic it replaced. The MOB offers specialty services, expanded space for primary care, a larger urgent care center, a state-of-the-art imaging center, lab services and a pharmacy.
Thanks to techniques more generally associated with building warehouses than offices, the facility was considerably less expensive than one delivered through traditional construction methods.
Normally, we go in and build footings and slabs, and then we create a steel structure and clad it with glass, brick or whatever materials the owner wants. The Monroe Clinic was a "tilt up." We poured concrete panels on a slab and then used a crane to hoist them vertically to become the walls of the building. We cast brick into the veneer to create architectural interest and then installed the roof and windows.
The Monroe Clinic went from a flat open construction site to a two-story building in two days. It was amazing. A time-lapse video of the Monroe project can be found here.
What I'm hearing from people across the healthcare industry is that they have to change the way they think about their business. Healthcare reform is focused on rewarding outcomes, not procedures. Doing more for less seems to be the direction, as it is, for most of us. For us, it means innovating alongside our customers and continually adjusting to meet their needs.
Bob McCleskey joined Sellen in 1982 and has held various management positions over the years, culminating in his current role of CEO. He has gained considerable expertise from directly managing many of Sellen's most challenging and technically demanding projects. Bob was a key player in developing Sellen's comprehensive approach to construction management, estimating, and cost control, and he has a long and successful track record in managing some of Sellen's most notable work, including projects for clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle Art Museum, Amazon, Vulcan, Schnitzer West and the University of Washington. Bob's focus has always been centered on building long-term relationships with our partners.
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