More InformationJHHSA Articles 
Behavioral Anchors: Building a Medical Center on Solid Foundations
MARTIN L. DOORDAN and RONALD J. STUPAK
JHHSA, Vol. 28 No. 1,
(2005)
Construction of new facilities in the healthcare arena is an
ongoing, almost daily, occurrence. The desire to build wisely and
effectively is evidenced at the Anne Arundel Medical Center which has
attracted healthcare executives from all over the country who come to
view, analyze, and experience the beauty, utility and interdependencies
of the buildings and facilities that constitute “the AAMC campus.”
However, too often these executive visitors and benchmarking
experts tend to focus on the technical, architectural, engineering,
concrete aspects of the hospital, while naively overlooking and/or
giving short shrift to the more critical behavioral dynamics of the
construction process.
The ultimate success of any building project requires a clear
understanding by the leadership of “where people are coming from,” so
that both the design and the development of the final product can be
brought under the synthesizing umbrella of patient care, clinical
excellence, individual safety, and community responsibility.
Not only must the leadership determine and drive the strategic
thrust toward the final outcome; in addition, they must make sure that
they allow significant colleagues to be actively, operationally, and
symbolically engaged in a process that ends up in a structural outcome
that everyone is proud to own, to see, and to inhabit.
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