Best Practices for Project Management, Design, and Construction of ...

Best Practice 7: Determine whether your project is feasible
Use your management staff and consultants to determine whether what you want to do can be
accomplished. The following substrategies are needed to ensure feasibility:
Best Practice 7a: Determine whether there are physical limitations that will prevent
achieving your intended outcome
There are limits to the built environment that can make a project infeasible. Physical feasibility
may also be affected by existing conditions of the target location or by adjacent conditions. In
applying regulations, OSHPD can require changes that either increase cost or result in project
abandonment if physical feasibility is not properly evaluated. Accurate as-built drawings and
physical evaluation of existing conditions are essential in determining feasibility for remodel or
addition projects. Drawings should include all disciplines (e.g., architectural, electrical,
mechanical, and plumbing).
Best Practice 7b: Determine the financial feasibility of the project
Whether you start with a target budget or target outcome, make certain that the total project
budget and the scope of the project match. Careful planning at this stage of the process is the
most important determinant of project success. Inaccurate or unrealistic budgets are the most
common drivers of change throughout the project duration. Any corresponding changes in the
scope of the project must be addressed in the project’s budget. Distinguish between the budget
and construction costs. Make sure adequate contingencies are defined to accommodate
unforeseen hospital impacts.
Design Phase
Best Practice 8: Require that your design team of architects and engineers design to the
current California Building Code
Experience has shown that there are common problems arising from design that seriously impact
the satisfactory completion of the OSHPD process. These include:
• Designing to a code other than the appropriate provisions of the CBSC;
• Designing to out-of-date codes;
• Using room designations or other nomenclature on plans that are not consistent with the
CBSC;
• Failure to make best use of PINs and CANs published by OSPHD; and
• Failure to follow the OSHPD Remodel CAN, which provides flow diagrams for use in
planning the scope and boundaries of remodel projects.
Best Practice 8a: Build in flexibility for change
A foundational design goal of any hospital project should be to provide flexibility to change. With
(OSHPD Best Practices) Page 95 DRAFT FINAL, Sept. 2011