Beyond Square Footage: Healthcare Leaders Show How Impact Trumps Expansion (Sponsored Content)

When organizations consider growth, the conversation often defaults to physical expansion via more buildings, larger facilities and increased square footage. But as two veteran healthcare administrators now teaching at Drury University demonstrate, the most strategic infrastructure decisions aren’t always about getting bigger.

Jay Guffey, who spent 40 years with Mercy, and Steve Edwards, who logged about 30 years with CoxHealth, have joined forces to lead Drury’s new Master of Health Administration program. Their combined experience offers valuable lessons for leaders in any sector weighing infrastructure and development decisions.

“Sometimes it’s not about the footprint, but it’s about the impact on your community,” Guffey reflects. “Your footprint may not grow in square footage, but your impact in the lives that you touch outside of that really does make a difference.”

That philosophy guided some of Mercy’s most significant infrastructure investments. When Mercy decided to build a separate rehabilitation hospital, the decision wasn’t simply about adding beds. “There was expertise that we could grab onto, partner with, and with that expertise, be able to bring together a partnership that would offer a whole variety of services that we were unable to offer within the hospital,” Guffey explains. The new facility allowed rehabilitation for stroke and trauma patients in a focused environment where “patients actually ate in the cafeteria as part of their rehabilitation to go home.”

Similarly, Mercy’s orthopedic hospital stemmed from strategic reallocation rather than mere expansion. By consolidating orthopedic surgeons’ clinic practices and inpatient services into one specialized facility, patients gained convenience by seeing their surgeon, having surgery, and receiving physical therapy all in the same building. Meanwhile, the move “decompressed” Mercy’s main campus, which was bounded by major roads and suffering from congestion.

Edwards brings a complementary perspective rooted in operations research. “You analyze the data, you look at trends, you look at projections, and then ultimately, there will not be enough information to make a decision with certainty,” he notes. “That’s when I think real leadership judgment and decision making comes into play.”

At Cox, decisions like adding private beds involved weighing multiple factors like higher operational costs against improved customer satisfaction and lower infection rates. “It was based on as much information as we can gather. But there’s always that gap, and you fill that gap with confidence, with judgment,” Edwards explains. Critical to that process was assembling diverse perspectives. “If we gathered the right people in a room, while maybe none of us had the answer, we would discover it together.”

This content is paid advertising by Drury University.