A Strategic Criteria-Based Approach for Making Facility Capital Investment Decisions for the MHS

A Strategic Criteria-Based Approach for Making Facility Capital Investment Decisions for the MHS

Falls Church, Virginia, USA

The US Military Health System (MHS) is one of the country’s largest integrated health systems spanning approximately 50 hospitals, and over 300 outpatient sites of care worldwide, with a health plan covering over 9 million lives. As future demand evolves, the MHS must continually transform the way it delivers healthcare to members of the military and their dependents. This includes ensuring the appropriate facilities in the right locations to deliver optimized care across their sites of care, while receiving the best value for their investments throughout their facilities worldwide. The Innova Group is currently engaged by the MHS to manage the planning and implementation of the Capital Investment Decision Model.

A Strategic Criteria-Based Approach for Making Facility Capital Investment Decisions for the MHS

The Innova Group is currently engaged by the MHS to manage the planning and implementation of the Capital Investment Decision Model (CIDM)—a process and set of tools to prioritize facility investment needs as well as develop and continuously update a $3 billion, 5-year capital investment plan. The CIDM process was developed and first implemented in 2008. At that time, evolving war-time medical missions, casualty care, technological innovations, new clinical practices, and patient/family expectations were requiring increased investment by the Department of Defense in its medical facilities, representing nearly $30 billion of plant replacement value. The primary challenge faced by the MHS facilities planning community was how to define, prioritize, and articulate the value of investing in new facilities across the system. The MHS lacked a coherent data-driven method to define and prioritize capital facility investment proposals across the three Military Services from a system-wide perspective that was linked to strategic goals of the enterprise. The structured CIDM decision-making process was the solution.

The CIDM process is based upon clearly defined evaluation criteria and metrics for facility investments that tie directly to the goals and objectives of the MHS Strategic Plan. It utilizes decision-support tools that provide a hierarchical, analytical process that is completely transparent to everyone involved. Current members of The Innova Group have been planning and facilitating the implementation of the CIDM process for the MHS since 2010. The CIDM process has been used successfully to prioritize and obtain funding for over $7 billion in facility capital investments since.