Critical success factors for delivering healthcare projects in Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong's population is ageing. The proportion of the aged (those 65 or over) will increase substantially from 11% in 2001 to 24% in 2031. The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in March 2003 also highlighted the strains that hospital beds and healthcare facilities could come under. However, healthcare projects, especially hospital projects, take a long time to deliver to the community. They involve a lengthy pre-construction stage and a post-contract period. Past experiences have shown that hospital projects usually end in serious time and cost overruns. Hence, in order to achieve outstanding performance in healthcare projects, defining what constitutes a successful project and how to implement it are crucial issues that have been attracting considerable attention in the construction industry. The objectives of this research are to identify the major problems involved in running healthcare projects; to develop a framework and a project success index (PSI) to measure the success of healthcare projects; and to formulate a conceptual model to link the critical success factors (CSFs) with the performance of the project. An analysis of 52 sample opinions from relevant parties via self-administered questionnaires has confirmed that 'highly complicated building services', 'a tight time schedule', 'the need to keep up with up-to-date technology', 'frequent changes demanded by multi-headed client and various end-users' and 'a fixed budget', were considered to be the top five problems faced by industry practitioners. Through a series of face-to-face interviews and a questionnaire survey, eight criteria including time, cost, quality, functionality, safety, environmental friendliness, client's satisfaction, and participants' satisfaction, were selected for assessing the success of healthcare projects. A project success index (PSI) based on the identified criteria was composed using principal components analysis to measure the level of success of healthcare projects. Using factor analysis and stepwise multiple regression analysis, predictors of the success of healthcare projects were identified. The findings of the research showed that project management action was the best predictor of the success of healthcare projects. The design team leaders' capabilities; client representatives' capabilities; construction team leaders' capabilities; and the nature of the project, were also found to have a strong influence of the success of a project, but to a lesser degree than project management action. They were followed by the client's abilities and the application of innovative project management techniques. An independent test group consisting of five projects that were not used to develop the regression model was obtained and used to test the reliability and sensitivity of the predictive model. A paired samples T-test, an analysis of the paired data, was then performed to test whether there was a significant difference between the computed values and actual values of the project success indices. From the results, it can be concluded that the critical success factors identified in this study are good predictors for various measures of performance. The research findings provide valuable information on factors that are important in the success of healthcare projects. The findings enhance the understanding of clients, contractors, and designers on how to run a successful project, and help them to develop a system that can be used to achieve excellent performance in healthcare projects in the future. The findings also assist in the selection of members of the project team, help to identify the needs of the project, and forecast the level of performance of the project. Apart from its practical applications, the research is also useful in the field of academics/education. The results of the research can enrich the content of management education programmes for both students and project managers. Moreover, this study can further be used as a solid basis upon which to conduct an international comparative study of the situation in Asia, Europe, and North America, by extending the investigation in collaboration with fellow researchers in these areas. This will help strengthen our understanding of how healthcare projects are managed in different countries.