Healthcare Facilities Network
The Healthcare Facilities Network podcast highlights the essential role of facilities
management in delivering high-quality patient care. Hosted by Peter Martin, this show brings you expert insights on the issues, trends, and solutions shaping the future of healthcare spaces. Learn from industry leaders and discover ways to drive positive change in your facility.
Healthcare Facilities Network
Live from FHEA 2026: The Biggest Conversations in Healthcare Facilities
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The Healthcare Facilities Network traveled to the Florida Healthcare Engineering Association (FHEA) Conference to connect with healthcare facility leaders, industry partners, and consulting professionals from across the state.
In this special episode, HFN captures the conversations shaping healthcare facilities in 2026. Topics include workforce shortages, succession planning, leadership development, artificial intelligence, NFPA updates, product life cycle management, and the strategies organizations are using to prepare for the future of healthcare facility operations.
Recorded live from the conference, these discussions highlight the real-world challenges facing healthcare facility departments and the innovative approaches leaders are taking to strengthen their teams, improve operations, and navigate an evolving industry.
Thank you to the Florida Healthcare Engineering Association and its leadership team for welcoming Healthcare Facilities Network to the conference and allowing us to share these conversations with the broader healthcare facilities community.
🚨 Subscribe to the Healthcare Facilities Network Podcast to gain awareness about the rewarding career of healthcare facilities management: / @healthcarefacilitiesnetwork
👥 Connect with Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-martin-6284363b/
Today's Guests:
👥 Connect with Bobby Baird: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobby-baird-fashe-chfm-2ab07814/
👥 Connect with Jennifer Bello: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-bello-bs-mph-chfm-che-4b8873174/
👥 Connect with John Crouch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-crouch-31aa83a/
👥 Connect with Michael Neely: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-neely-a301a14a/
👥 Connect with Taylor Benay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-benay-0a684071/
👥 Connect with Jim Peterkin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-peterkin-35bbb66/
👥 Connect with Patrick Murphy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-murphy-31a7439/
👥 Connect with Steve Van Ness: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-w-van-ness-a8356017/
✅ Important Links To Follow:
👉 Cref: https://cref.com
👉 HFN Website: https://healthcarefacilitiesnetwork.com/
👉Watch on YouTube: https://healthcarefacilitiesnetwork.com/
👉Listen on Apple Music: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
👉Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3vWorrUkfsBprrg5S2TUjZ
✅ Stay Connected With Us!
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthcare-facilities-network/
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthcarefacilitiesnetwork/
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572807523974
👉X: https://x.com/HFNPodcast
📬 For Business Inquiries: pmartin@cref.com
=================================
Disclaimer: We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage which is incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to any of our publications. For all videos on my channel: This information is for general & educational purposes only. Always consult with an attorney, CPA, or financial professional for advice based on your specific situation. Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
© Healthcare Facilities Network.
On Site At The FIA Show
SPEAKER_02Hello, Ketomar Healthcare Facilities Network here from Florida Healthcare Engineers Association. We are on site, Orlando, Florida. I am outside, it is warm, so have another couple of days of filming ahead. Have some guests that we're gonna line up, uh have some discussions, a little bit different content, go to the trade show floor. We will be coming to you live from FIA over the next couple of days. I hope you enjoy the content. And if you have any suggestions for me how we can improve it, please let me know for now. Signing off, Peter Martin Healthcare Facilities Network. Welcome to FIA.
The Aging Crisis In Healthcare Facilities
SPEAKER_02There's a major crisis facing healthcare facilities management. We have aging employees, aging buildings, and aging infrastructure. We've created the Healthcare Facilities Network, a content network designed specifically to help solve for these three pressing issues in healthcare facilities management. We bring on thought leaders and experts from across healthcare facilities management. All the way from the C-suite to the technician level, because at the end of the day, we're all invested in solving the aging issue. Thanks for tuning in. Look at our videos, you will find that is a theme across our content. This is the Healthcare Facilities Network. I'm your host, Peter Martin.
What We Filmed At FIA
SPEAKER_02Quick update. The first is a panel discussion that I have with Terence Wright from Mofka Cancer Center, Jennifer Bellow from HCA Healthcare, and Bobby Baird from the University of Florida Health. They joined me just to look at the market, to talk about some of the challenges. They joined me last year at FIA. I recorded an episode with them and it went really well. There's a nice dynamic among the three, and so we record it again. In advance, I want to apologize for some of the background noise. It's always a challenge to find a place to record. So what we did here is we went to the exhibitor floor, but we went early in the morning when it was closed. But you'll hear some of the background noise of the vendor setting up. So I apologize for that. Um you can hear the content, but there is the banging in the background. So again, my apologies for that. So that's the first video you'll see. The second is uh with Mike Neely from uh Baycare, Baycare Health down in the Tampa area. Um on the west coast of Florida, we talk about some of the employment challenges. I had a good conversation with Mike at FIA last year in 2025. I was like, I would love to get you on the network to talk about um some of the challenges. And Baycare is doing some unique things, so I think you'll enjoy the conversation with Mike. Both the panel discussion and the Mike conversation, I cut it down to three minutes, but they're gonna be released as longer episodes in the full length coming up um in the coming weeks. So please be on the lookout for that. But for now, enjoy. But
Market Pressures And Leadership Stress
SPEAKER_02from your perspective, guys, what pressure of all the ones that you feel, what do you feel the most debang for a pressure pull in your role? Terence again, why don't we just start with you and then we roll out? You guys feel free to interact and feel free to ask questions of each other at jump in. You know, eBay.
SPEAKER_00I I think it's all the if the market pressures are things that we're seeing, so we're still seeing supply chain-related issues. We continue to see issues related to the recruiting detention, and uh I continue to be concerned about uh the aging of staff and uh retirement and all of those types of things, and just the uh depressers, uh all that it's detailed.
SPEAKER_05For me, um either one expresses, I feel that we have is satisfying multiple people. Ah so like you have your division people, your corporate people, um in the facilities, they have their leadership COOs, CNOs, they everybody wants to be different, and you're just trying to satisfy multiple people. And I feel at the current part of my life where I'm at, that's just a big stress that's on the stuff.
SPEAKER_02So, how do you go about satisfying multiple people?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's a good question. I think you're you have to be a good leader to know where you need to lead in and um who does do it first, and then you just need to be able to break yourself apart in, right, and just do it. Yeah, you just have to be able to, you know what satisfies each each person and how you can just maybe not to the total, like maybe not if there's like five things they want, maybe just pick one thing, focus on that. Focus on one thing from another person and that leverage.
SPEAKER_01We often call that emotional intelligence, and I need to go to the master class at that. So uh I Peter, you know, and Terrence, I think both of you are hitting it on
Deferred Maintenance Needs A Better Story
SPEAKER_01the head. But one thing that uh I make us a progress on, and I think our organization has not done a good job with, is understanding the risk of with deferring maintenance. All right, so so we might recognize it, but do we do a good job of helping our organization recognize that? And so as we loo down a more deferred maintenance at, which no one here sure has any of that, and you know, if we don't do a good job tell the story, I love tell a story, then we are not doing our leadership of service. So uh Charles Clay, I know you probably know Charles, written a book or two on this, and it's it's really important. We have to get that message across. That's what worries me. Am I doing a good enough job of getting that thought? How do you try to get that message across? Uh it's storytelling. It's it's got to be a short story because we all have very short attention spans, so it's gotta be the impact of the organization if this fails. Or when this failed, really. It's not you. It's going to fail.
SPEAKER_02For the listeners
Workforce Losses In High Cost Cities
SPEAKER_02from the big picture perspective, 15 hospitals building the 16th, how would you describe your workforce situation within FF?
SPEAKER_09We're really struggling right now. Um, in the Tampa market, uh, it's a very competitive market. We're competing with the construction industry, we're competing with the commercial industry. We're seeing less um techs in the field. Uh after the last hurricane, we lost a lot of our techs uh just because the area has become so hard to live in with the rise of costs. So we're seeing a lot of our techs choose to move more north uh to states where maybe car insurance is cheaper, housing is cheaper, uh insurance for housing is cheaper. Uh so we we struggle on on all fronts. We're losing them to competitors, and then we're losing them just for the economic reasons as well.
SPEAKER_02It's a really interesting answer, Mike. I never really thought of you know, because I'm from the Boston area, from the north. We have a high cost of living, everybody knows that. And um but you guys are losing it to the so Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee.
SPEAKER_02Wow. And you know, I should have asked you this, and you mentioned it. So you guys are located in the Tampa area, and so you're on the wet more on the west coast of Florida. Correct. Correct. Central part of the city, West Coast. Okay. So when you um when you try to keep your folks, you know, when they tell you you're leaving, are you able to be you get in the same ballpark, or is it just is it non-competitive at this point?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, it it's really not competitive. Um our wage scales are not competitive with construction industry or the commercial. Um we do rebound though. We do get some of them back because some of the guys who leave for the commercial industries, uh take HVAT, for example, they're in a truck all day long, eight hours driving. They have a route they have to do. So some of them are leaving at 5 a.m., not getting home to eight, nine, ten o'clock at night, and then starting all over. So after a couple months of that, we get some of them back saying, you know what, working in a hospital where it's Monday through Friday. Yep, and I know my schedule, I know when I'd be there. Yeah, once in a while I get called. Um it it's very uh appealing, especially to those with younger kids. So we lose them and then they some come back, but um most of the time we can't if someone really wants them, maybe we can't confuse them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's very interesting too, because I used to find that when I was doing the recruiting, you'd be looking for like those mid-career guys, maybe like 38 to 50, maybe they have the young kids, they've made some money in the trades, now they want the stability. But everybody's looking for them. Exactly. And there's not a exactly a ton of them out there. No. Peter
The AI Spending Stat That Stopped Us
SPEAKER_02Martin here from the trade show floor at the FIA conference. Trade show opens up in a couple hours. It's Monday midday. Lots of activity. You know, FIA is a big, big show. Was it Tafim? Tafim was a big one, Nihis was a big one. This one is too. I'm gonna flip the camera around so you get a sense for the exhibitor space. You know, it doesn't exactly rival Ashi, but it is a big local conference. The reason you're seeing me pop into the middle of this video is because I wanted to make sure that we didn't lose the statistic. At one of the presentations, gentlemen said that 46% of healthcare dollars are spent on artificial intelligence on AI. Huge number. Maybe do a double take. Now I want to look that up and confirm it, and I would encourage you to do the same. That's a massive number, and you know, we can't escape it, folks. AI continues to be a huge theme at every presentation and around the conference. So we're gonna be covering that a little bit more because you just can't escape it. We need to find ways to use it to our best effect. So, wanted to get on there quickly. We'll talk to you later.
Turning Facility Pain Into Better Tech
SPEAKER_02Thanks for viewing. So, Peter Martin here on the trade show floor at FIA with Taylor Bennet of Hexmodal. Taylor, who are you?
SPEAKER_06Hello. Hi, uh, I am Taylor Bene, and I am the director of business development here at Hexmodal.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Taylor, uh, first, before we talk a little bit about Hexmodal, talk to me a little bit about FIA. What do you get from these trade show present from these trade shows that you guys attend all over the country?
SPEAKER_06Great question. Hmm. I'm gonna tell you my favorite part of being a part of FHEA. It's the same thing as what I get out of it, but being a part of FHEA is this network. Every single day you get to meet and talk to people that are on the floor and their healthcare facility finding problems. What can technology be used for? What can it not be used for? And then my job is to take it back to our engineering team, be like, hey, these are the real struggles that healthcare facility teams are having, and then have their intelligent brains work on something to help automate and make their lives easier.
SPEAKER_02So I told Taylor that this is a short, and she really brought up two great things within 20 seconds, and we're actually going to be talking to Hexmodal at a later date, but let's focus on one of the interesting things before we roll tape. Taylor was talking about technology development and how that occurs. Taylor, talk a little bit about technology development and what might people not know about developing technology.
SPEAKER_06The not know for technology development is truly how how long how long it takes. So let me show you something for a second.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_06If I'm showing you, you see something like this, you're gonna think, very simple. I've seen this before, it reads the temperature, it displays it right here. But when I hear about the hurdles that healthcare facilities are having, which is infrastructure, I don't have the funds to hardwire something into my facility, I don't have the power of labor or the field staff to then install it, or I don't want to go through IT because of how many security risks we have. So something as simple like this, what Hexwell has done instead is it's battery operated. And not only is it battery operated that where you could just plug and play, put it on the wall, and it can start reading immediately, it then transmits the data that's reading on here, the temperature, through a radio frequency. So it's scrambling that radio frequency, the temperature here, then reconfiguring that data together, sending it up through the cloud through cellular data to a website. And on that website, you can see it looks pretty. You're like, great, I can read the temperature instantly. That took two years to invent solely because if you're having a screen that's on 24-7, that's gonna drain a lot of battery.
SPEAKER_02If you like this video, please like and subscribe to the network. And more importantly, share it with your colleagues in the healthcare industry. Together, we can solve the aging crisis that's impacting all of us.
Data, AI, And Energy Savings Claims
SPEAKER_02Gentlemen, tell me what you've learned today at the conference that was aha, that somebody maybe at a critical care critical access hospital out in the middle of Montana, Wyoming, New England, Florida, may not know.
SPEAKER_03Um, the data has been a big undertone today. You know, the ability to aggregate data, to use data to help make improvements in systems has been a trend and a focus at each one of the panel discussions we've been in, which I think is incredible. Um and I think we're gonna continue to see that.
SPEAKER_02You know, not to uh belabor the point, you both mentioned AI. Um I'm tired of it, but we can't run away from it, right? Like every conference we go to now, everybody's talking AI, seemingly within the last year. Because if you compare it to last year or even two years ago, not even close to the amount of folks talking about AI. So we really can't escape it. And Shay Rankorn did that great podcast with us about really starting slowly and working your way in. But as you guys look at AI, like is it possible to know where we're going at this point, or or what would you say is a good way to look at it, to start utilizing, just to start to integrate it, because we can't escape it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean I think it goes hand in hand with the ability to start aggregating more information for AI to analyze in our facilities. I think that's a really big piece. Uh you can't manage what you can't measure. You've heard that a bunch. And we've heard in more than one panel discussion today that you can find 30% savings in your your energy usage just by being able to see or data on what your existing system is performing at today.
NFPA 101 And How Codes Evolve
SPEAKER_02So Peter Martin here from FIA, day two on the conference floor, on the vendor floor. We're a little bit outside. I'm here with my guest, Jim Peerikim. Jim, thank you for joining me. Jim, who are you? What do you do, and what are your thoughts about FHEA so far?
SPEAKER_10So uh Jim Peterkin, Senior Fire Exchange here with TLC and Yuri. One-time Ashie member, Ashie Tello. And I'm here speaking at FHEA today on NFPA 101. FHEA is a great group. Um chapter of Ashie. It's a unique chapter. I guess there's a couple of them like it, um, but that's a whole state chapter, Florida Healthcare Engineering Association for you. Uh and it's broken down the regions, which then have monthly meetings on their own uh at different regions, and then twice a year they get together in spring and the furlough to do a statewide conference, and this is this is the spring conference, which is great.
SPEAKER_02So Jim just gave a great two-hour session that you still couldn't get all your material out. Jim, what were you talking about? And tell us how has your particular field of expertise changed over the years?
SPEAKER_10So I was here doing a presentation or NFT 10 run, uh, I safety code, uh two-hour presentation, which in one sense one hour would have been good because I could have just given up. Oh are you two hours? I need to dive deeper, but it's not enough to cover the whole code. So it was kind of a tough one and we ran out of time. We didn't get all the way through, but covered a lot of material. I think it was uh my main focus was trying to teach the structure of the code, how the hell and maneuver through the cover. If you know the structure, it makes things a lot easier to find. One person came up to me and was like, oh my gosh, that was like so informative. I wish I'd known that years ago. I was like, you made my day, because that was my my focus. So that was good. Um and my role was changed. I've been in the healthcare now for over 30 years, um, involved in NFPA for over 20 years, involved in trying to change the codes positively for healthcare. Um just expertise level grows as the more you spark in the field, the more expertise he gets.
SPEAKER_02Jim, let me ask a question. Relative to codes, how can people help? Because codes is obviously a huge, huge issue. How can people assist? How can they get involved?
SPEAKER_10Well, certainly if you're passionate about codes, you can certainly get involved, even if you just want to make public inputs, public confidence on your own. Anyone can do that. If you ever need any assistance, reach out to Ashie or Chad B E or the cells. We can help. Uh we can get involved in Ashie or NFPA codes and standards. Um NFPA. Invite people to join us. We're always looking for more volunteers. Um that's the best way to get involved. And and there's times when Ashie's put us puts a call down for hey, we need information for a code committee that's trying to gather data, because the best way to change codes is to show the data as opposed to coming up with change on the blue. We can come in and show the numbers. Hey, this is what we're showing, this is what we're seeing. The committee's much more receptive that we can show on the data.
SPEAKER_02Jim Peterkin, TLC Engineering. Thank you for your time this morning. Anytime.
SPEAKER_10Thanks, Peter.
SPEAKER_02So,
How To MC A Tight Agenda
SPEAKER_02Peter Martin returning. This is the end of day one. And I thank John Crouch for joining me. We're not here to do a day one wrap-up. John, before we get to what we're talking about, though. Can you introduce yourself to us?
SPEAKER_04Certainly. I'm John Crouch. I'm the administrative director of engineering at Evan Health Tampa Hospital. And I've been in the uh healthcare industry as a uh facilities leader for 23 years now.
SPEAKER_02So this is a little bit different of a request. I've I've said before, John, and it's not just because you're sitting next to me. I go to a lot of these conferences. And John is typically or always the MC here for the Florida Healthcare Engineers Association meetings. And as I've said, I've always been impressed by the way you run the meeting. Because I'm sure you go to a lot of meetings, sometimes you see the MC kind of lets time slow. I've always credited John as of all the conferences I go to, you do a fantastic job. And so, we're not here to talk about aging buildings, we're not here to talk about aging infrastructure, we're not here to talk about aging employees, we talk about that all the time. I wanted to get a little bit of an insight from John about running an effective conference from the MC perspective. And so, my first question to John is what is your philosophy in running a show with hundreds of people with a tight agenda? So, what's your philosophy and where does it come from?
SPEAKER_04Well, first I think you need to dress for the position. You need to be looking dressed to the nines that uh you put a lot of care and thought into being present for the day. Because subconsciously, uh, we give authority to people uh who seem to be elevated in their dress and decorum on how they present themselves. And number two is having the confidence to command the room. There's a rope called authority and it's on the ground. Someone's gonna pick it up. Don't let the seconds or minutes tick by before you decide to pick it up. Pick it up immediately upon arrival and presenting yourself to the group. You own that space, you whether it's your first conference that you're performing the MC duties, or it's your 20th, it shouldn't really matter. Your confidence needs to be there from day one. This is my room. I own I own it, I control it. And if you need to, you command your voice, uh, even though you've got a PA system, and get their attention. People are not used to hearing a powerful voice when they're in a public setting. A lot of people are very shy about raising their voice. But you can raise your voice in a manner that doesn't sound like you're screaming uh in a high-pitched shrill. I here's an example. If there's a lot of chatter going on, I've taken the stage, I started to speak, and they continue to want to hold their conversations. I will interrupt and say, the meeting is in session. If you want to carry on your conversation, please leave and hold your conversation outside. And then I resume speaking what has to be said. That may sound parental, it may sound offensive or rude, but I don't worry about offending people who are rude because they're the ones who are rude. They are not given the audience the opportunity to hear the presentation and the conversations that are intentional from the stage.
SPEAKER_02So that's why I like going to the conferences where John is the is the MC because you're on par. I wanted to ask you, John, where does that come from?
SPEAKER_04You know, but now the audience will know. I am a United States Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine, and I ended up serving 23 years, eight months in the Marine Corps. And during that time, I spent six years as a Marine Corps drill instructor, four years training future Marines, two years training future naval officers at Navy OCS. Therefore, you have to have command and control of your audience, your area of responsibility. So I um would say two things.
SPEAKER_02Number one, if you don't follow John Crouch on LinkedIn, do especially if you like leadership history, John, you're a frequent poster on LinkedIn. There's lots of articles up there. He's a very good follow, so follow John on LinkedIn. And then I told John that I would only keep him 10 minutes because he has to run to the trade show floor to see the vendors. Last question to John, and you kind of hit on it talking about the chatter. But is there a difficult situation you recall from a conference where you had to play the heavy? And how do people react to that? I guess more importantly, what's the reaction from folks when you raise your voice or you tell them don't be rude? People aren't used to that these days.
SPEAKER_04I can see the uh expressions on their face, but I don't take time to lock eyes and have a long-term connectivity with how they're reacting to what I just said. All I care about is ensuring that my voice was heard above the din of uh chaos and noise. The example is I remember a couple of years ago, it was time to come back in. I gave them 15 minutes. And at 15 minutes, only about 20% of the audience returned. The other 80% were out in the foyer. So I walked out there without microphones and used my command voice, and I simply said, You're in the wrong room. You're supposed to be in here where I was and you were. This conversation should stop, carry inside, and give our guests the opportunity to speak and uh or something to that effect. That's why I asked John to come on, John. Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_02All right, you signing off. Thank you, John.
How To Join The Network
SPEAKER_02If you want to be a guest on a future episode of the Healthcare Facilities Network, go to healthcarefacilitiesnetwork.com and let us know who you are and what you want to talk about. Because together, we can solve this critical aging issue.