Ascension Health System - HQ, St. Louis, MO

Business Plan Review Services

Hammes Company is the preferred provider of third-party reviews of business plans for Ascension Health System. In this capacity, we review submissions by the individual Health Ministries in support of their capital requests from across the system. Hammes helps manage risk associated with capital planning for large projects by providing independent checks on the assumptions and achievability of the business plans. This includes evaluation of market assessments, facility solutions (program, budget and schedule), and financial feasibility. The reviews are two-phased to coincide with the conceptual and schematic phases of facility-related business plan development. To date, Hammes Company has reviewed over $1 billion in capital projects for Ascension Health.

Planning Toolkit Development

Hammes Company developed a standard planning toolkit for Ascension to be used by the Health Ministries during the capital project planning process. The toolkit is designed as a “review tool” to assist local management in finalizing the business plans for their capital submissions, minimizing risks and uncertainties associated with preparing project assumptions, and estimating capital costs. Additionally, the toolkit helps local ministry management to understand and control project scope variances. It creates common project vocabulary and ensures that all Ascension business plans are developed in a similar manner, allowing the system to evaluate capital projects more consistently.

The toolkit includes benchmark costing and other data, as well as standard market assumptions, templates, and guidelines gathered from a proprietary cost database and from Hammes Company’s national experience. Hammes Company provides training on toolkit usage as well as maintaining the accuracy of the benchmark data on an ongoing basis.

Master Facility and Market Planning Services

Hammes Company has provided master facility and market planning services for several of Ascension Health's regions. Hammes was engaged by St. Vincent Health, located in Indianapolis, Indiana, to provide comprehensive master facility planning services for 11 hospitals within the region. The plan consolidated the capital requirements across all 11 hospitals to create an overall plan for the regional system. Hammes Company also provided market and facility planning services for two other Health Ministries; St. Vincent's Health Services in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Carondelet Health in Kansas City, Missouri.

Capital Planning Online Resource

Hammes Company was engaged to help the corporate office of Ascension to develop an online capital planning resource tool for system-wide use. The "CPOR" is a tool which provides resources to the Health Ministries throughout the capital project planning and implementation process. These resources include guidelines, checklists, forms, worksheets, reference materials, preferred provider guidelines and lists, standardized contracts, and other project management tools to aid in maintaining appropriate and necessary controls for accomplishing a building project on time, within budget and to the quality level desired. The CPOR also documents the capital project approval process, which helps to clarify responsibilities and expectations between the Health Ministries and the system office as these projects move through that process.

Project Management Services

Hammes Company has provided project management services for two hospitals within the St. Vincent Health region located in Indianapolis, Indiana and for St. John Health in Detroit, Michigan. The first project was a long-term acute care (LTACH) facility in Indianapolis for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Hospital of central Indiana. The second was a large operating room renovation for St. Vincent Indianapolis. Hammes Company also planned and developed an expansion of the existing campus for St. John Medical Center - Romeo Plank in Macomb, Michigan.

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Our Services

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