When construction projects are to satisfy health care needs - partnering as a way of connecting the two?

Paper in proceeding, 2019

In the construction industry the intention with partnering is that it should facilitate closer interaction between the client and the project organisation and particularly assist the contractor-client communication. In the Scandinavian countries, a number of high-technology hospitals are currently being planned for and being built through partnering agreements with intentions of providing modern health care supported by advanced medical technology. Health care represents a complex structure of actors, resources and activities that are to be coordinated toward the purpose of providing relevant and consistent care services to individuals over time. The remaining project organisation embodies construction-related organisations that represent a temporarily organised constellation of actors, resources and activities in the design, production and delivery of the building. Thus, as construction “meets” health care in a construction project, there are very different requirements that are to be fulfilled; that of gaining benefits from temporarily organising around a construction project and that of having a facility that supports complex care processes over time. The differences in requirements in turn rests on the different logics of on the one hand temporary and on the other hand permanent organisations of a different set of activities, resources and actors. Through the industrial network approach (INA) we outline the interactions taking place between key actors in a large health care construction project practicing partnering in Sweden, and investigate how partnering affects the communication of these different logics in play. How is the interaction coloured by these different requirements and logics during the different project phases, and what is the role of partnering in creating a favourable setting for useful interaction?