SmithGroup at 2025 Healthcare Design Conference + Expo

Sunday, October 26 
 

9:45 AM -10:45 AM | Innovate and Accelerate: Achieving Speed-to-Market with Progressive Design-Build  
Gabriel Fonseca, Jacqueline Lee 

Facing growing demand and rising costs, UC Davis Health used a progressive design-build approach to ensure its 260,000-square-foot 48X Complex was completed efficiently. This approach facilitated achieving the goal of patient-ready status within 45 months of the project award. SmithGroup’s Gabriel Fonseca and Jacqueline Lee will join UC Davis Health and DPR Construction leaders to share how real-time collaboration, cost and schedule integration, and design excellence drove one of the nation’s most complex healthcare projects to success.  

11:00 AM -12:00 PM | Back to the Future: Layered POE Lessons from the Past  

Marybeth Dietz, Prerana Kamat, Sudhiksha Srinivasan  
Step into a time-machine and journey through the past and future of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Galter Pavilion, where progressive post-occupancy evaluations (POEs) have driven precision healthcare design. SmithGroup’s Marybeth Dietz, Prerana Kamat and Sudhiksha Srinivasan, along with Christine Strom from Northwestern Memorial Healthcare, will share how layered POEs have enabled rapid prototyping and data-driven design improvements, shaping each new phase of the hospital with precision and insight. 
 

11:00 AM -12:00 PM | Transformative Team Dynamics: A New Approach to Authentic Partnering  

Chee Keong Lin 

The $3.7B UC Davis Health California Tower is the largest progressive design-build hospital project in the U.S., spanning a decade and involving over 600 professionals. SmithGroup Health Studio Leader Chee Keong Lin, John Stanley of McCarthy Building Companies, Frank Schaffarczyk of Cambridge CM, Jill Tomczyk of UC Davis Health, and Debbie King of Transformative Leadership Partners will come together to share a four-phased strategy that redefines collaboration across client, architect, and contractor teams, setting a new benchmark for trust, performance, and partnership in complex healthcare delivery.  
 

Tuesday, October 28
 

9:30 AM -10:30 AM | Shared Perspectives to Hit Target Budgets  

Cynthia Beckham 

As healthcare systems face rising costs and constrained budgets, early collaboration is key to delivering high-quality, cost-effective environments. SmithGroup’s Health Studio Leader Cynthia Beckham, Tom Cavender (WakeMed), Kevin Matuszewski (Johns Hopkins), and Deborah Sheehan (DPR) will lead an interactive session exploring practical tools, benchmarking models, and communication strategies that help owners, designers, and contractors align on value-driven solutions that support long-term flexibility and operational success.  
 

9:30 AM -10:30 AM | Whole Person Care: Learning from the VA  

Carly Fenton, John Moorhead 

As behavioral health challenges grow nationwide, healthcare systems can look to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for proven models of whole person care. This session, led by SmithGroup’s Carly Fenton and John Moorhead in collaboration with Federal Healthcare Practice Leader Dan Therrien at Guidon Design, explores how VA design and operational strategies—shared by decades of experience serving veterans—can be adapted to create more equitable, integrated behavioral health environments across public and private sectors.  

1:15 PM -2:15 PM | Bridging Theory and Practice: Whiteriver Hospital's Safety Initiative  

Farimah Raisali, Robyn Roelofs, Tripti Singh  

The IHS Whiteriver Replacement Hospital is transforming care for 17,000 American Indian and Alaska Native residents through research-driven design. SmithGroup team members Farimah Raisali, Robyn Roelofs and Tripti Singh will join Scott Fillerup of IHS to share how targeted studies on patient lift devices, infection isolation, and restroom layouts, directly informed planning and safety protocols, bridging theory and practice to elevate healthcare environments.