National Health Care Facility Benchmarking Summary Report

Health care costs continue to outpace economic growth, reaching 17.9 percent of U.S. GDP by 2011, raising significant concern among policymakers about the financial burden on governments, consumers, and insurers—particularly the high costs of planning and constructing health care facilities, which represent a major share of total spending. In response, the Construction Industry Institute (CII), with support from federal agencies and industry leaders, developed the first national, industry-defined benchmarking program to measure the cost, schedule, and performance of health care capital projects.

Beginning in 2008 and formally launched in 2011, the CII National Health Care Facilities Benchmarking Program (NHCFBP) established standardized, sector-specific metrics and an online data system to enable external benchmarking across organizations. Guided by a steering team of health care owners and contractors, the program overcame significant variation in practices to create common definitions and reporting standards. By 2013, data from 89 projects had been submitted, including 65 analyzed in this first summary report, demonstrating early success and positioning the program as a leading effort to improve performance and value in health care facility delivery.