Towards an understanding of the digital transformation of facility management in healthcare: perspectives from practice

Purpose - Facility management (FM) in healthcare is an organisational function that provides non-medical activities, ensuring operational functionality of critical health infrastructure. FM leaders are under pressure to implement the digital transformation, confronted with a highly complex and challenging operational environment. However, the current scope and understanding of the digital transformation in FM is rather limited, with a strong focus on technology. This perspective is inadequate to realise a digital transformation in healthcare organisations and requires a new framework. To ensure the practical applicability, a clearer depiction on how FM practitioners in the field, currently understand the digital transformation, is necessary. Design/methodology/approach - A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was chosen with a qualitative data collection and quantitative data analysis phase. A total of 23 semi-structured research interviews with professionals from FM in healthcare in Switzerland were carried out. Topic modeling was used to analyse, identify and cluster topics. Findings - In total, nine distinct digital transformation topics were generated: ‘addressing future organisational and people needs’, ‘end-user-oriented processes’, ‘digitalisation management vs. digital tools’, ‘major organisational change’, ‘information exchange and work culture’, ‘digital systems’, ‘pressure’, ‘company-wide strategy’ and ‘management support and communication involving non-medical support services’. The findings indicate that FM practitioners perceive the digital transformation beyond the purely technological viewpoint, although they lack the know-how and instruments necessary to implement the digital transformation. Originality/value - This study employs an innovative research design, resulting in foundational insights on how FM in healthcare perceives the digital transformation. As such, the study expands the notion on what the digital transformation means for the FM field.