Navigating reality to pursue excellence

When the weather warms up, I’m reminded that spring is near and, with it, conference season for the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) typically begins. At ASHE, we are proud to offer our members, business partners and other professionals in the field two annual conferences when most associations offer only one, in addition to the local conferences offered by our chapters. 

I have been attending ASHE’s International Summit & Exhibition on Health Facility Planning, Design & Construction (the PDC Summit) and/or the ASHE Annual Conference & Technical Exhibition (ASHE Annual) for about 36 years now, and these terrific events have been instrumental to my professional growth. They get better every time ASHE has produced them. One major reason for that is your input — we constantly seek, examine and integrate our attendees’ feedback.

Of course, we had to approach things differently last year. The ASHE Advisory Board and staff were disappointed to cancel the 2020 PDC Summit in light of the pandemic. As disappointed as we were then, we were equally impressed with the way the ASHE staff flexed to produce our first-ever virtual Annual Conference in October 2020. And we are continuing to adapt to our members’ needs. 

After that conference, we took in your evaluations and analyzed our successes and lessons learned to prepare for our next virtual event. We also surveyed potential attendees of the 2021 PDC Summit and determined that it would be our next all-virtual event. We are thrilled to present our PDC Summit virtually on June 2-4, 2021. If you have not registered yet, you can do so now.

Achieving operational excellence begins at a health care facility’s earliest stages, during the PDC process. As you attend the PDC Summit or begin the PDC process with your team, consider the different ways that your facility’s culture incorporates operational excellence from the initial steps. 

I have no doubt that you will learn valuable lessons at the PDC Summit that will support efficient designs with the end user in mind. I hope to connect with you there!