Forecasting a Predictable Future: How Children’s Health Used Origin Data to Secure $20 Million in Funding Requests

Facilitate Capital Planning 

The beds are always full at Children’s Health, so Bohme and her team have spent a lot of time in recent years planning for expansions or new construction. Currently, the Dallas campus is preparing to transition into a brand-new hospital, and there are a number of decisions to make about how to best occupy existing ancillary buildings. 

“Having all the asset information in Origin helps us be strategic in that planning,” Bohme says. For example, when the team studies are being done to convert the usage of a building to a different type of usage, Origin makes it easy

Origin helps us consider all the options and change our minds frequently. Every month, someone has a new assessment, new plan or new idea. And the reality is we can quickly change our minds because we've used Origin to build 10-year forecasts for all of our buildings. So it's been a really helpful tool for us to plan strategically.

Drive Better Decisions 

Not only does Origin allow for simplified scenario planning, it also provides reliable data to help Children’s Health leaders make informed facility decisions. For example, in early 2023, Bohme’s team started a project to upgrade the chilled water system in one of the clinical buildings on the Dallas campus. Before they began, however, the planning and design team mentioned that they might vertically expand six stories on top of the clinical building in the future. 

Bohme halted the chilled water system replacement project to discuss all the details with design and construction. “We had created a design to replace the chilling towers and we knew what the cost of upgrading all this stuff would be, and we wanted to share the costs,” she says. “When they realized they would need to add $6 million to the project for cooling towers and piping by adding on vertically, they decided to expand horizontally.”

Bohme credits Origin for providing the information her team needs to stop and start decisions and justify their steps. “Having the capabilities to make strategic decisions and have justification and reasons for those decisions is really important, and a lot of facilities don’t have that ability,” she says. “But even if you don't have engineers on staff, if you have something like Origin that gives you risk, gives you cost, and gives you the order in which things should be replaced, you can make informed decisions based on risk mitigation, and with the cost in mind.” 

Justify Capital Funding Requests 

The Children’s Health team used Origin to develop a 10- year plan for each of its campuses, and Bohme’s team meets annually with finance and executive leadership to go through the plans, provide reasons and justifications for their decisions, and request the needed funding. 

Origin allows the team to share dynamic data with leadership. For example, when requesting funds for a new piece of equipment, the data “shows that we’re not just putting it in and saying, at 20 years we’re going to replace it,” Bohme says. “We’re able to say, ‘We’ve fixed it five times in the past year; this is why we should replace it.’ You can often get more than the service life out of a piece of equipment, but you have to compare the cost of repairs, labor, and downtime with the capital request, and having that dynamic interface is really what helps justify some of this.” 

Every year, Children’s Health uses the equipment lists and risk ranks provided by Origin to secure capital for upcoming projects. In 2023, Bohme’s team was able to secure about $20 million from finance.

We've used Origin to forecast a future the finance team can anticipate. That’s probably the only reason we are so blessed to have such a robust program.