"Medicare and Medicaid shortfalls, manpower shortages, unfounded mandates, malpractice insurance costs, physician relations, not enough beds – is a hospital capital expansion project on the horizon for you? Attending a recent national healthcare conference, the moderator asked the 300 attendees how many were expecting to start a hospital expansion project. At least half of the room raised their hands. Although hospital executives view themselves as generalists with a small amount of knowledge about a lot of subjects, or said another way, our knowledge is an inch deep and a yard wide. It does not necessarily give us the expertise to manage a complex construction project. A major expansion project may confront an executive maybe once or twice in his career. He needs a template in which to provide process and context in which to manage a project successfully. Author John Kemper’s primer on “Launching a Healthcare Capital Project: What Every Executive Should Know” is that prerequisite which every executive should read before undertaking a project, both large and small. Jack Welch, former GE CEO, understood that the superior manager needs to take a deep dive into his organization in order to learn what is really going on and more or less take a pulse. John’s primer allows the CEO and senior executives the same opportunity to take that deep dive or more simply, to map out his capital project with John’s guidance which was acquired from years of consulting on many health care capital projects. In our case, I was afforded the once in a lifetime opportunity to take a total hospital replacement project from start to finish. With 5,000 hospitals nationally, only 60-80 replacement projects going on in any one year, I felt most fortunate to be given this opportunity. Having signed on to this challenge, I realized it would take additional expertise to pull it off successfully. John Kemper and his team were brought on board early in our replacement project. We virtually followed John’s game plan as enumerated in his book. His process works and whenever we attempted to second guess his process, he would bring us back which resulted in a project that is on schedule and on budget. Proof that it works. As a senior executive you may think you can sort of “just do it” without following John’s prescription. Don’t. Just as the doctor prescribes “take this medication, get plenty of bed rest and you’ll get better” – take John’s prescription and you will get a full night’s sleep, no nightmares, no more night sweats – just pleasant dreams and a great project."