Employee Spotlight on Pam Willars, Senior Associate, Medical Equipment Planning

SM&W’s senior marketing team recently caught up with Pam Willars, Senior Associate, Medical Equipment Planning to chat.

 

As one of SMW’s Senior Medical Equipment Planners, Pam focuses on ensuring that facilities have the equipment they need to provide the best outcomes for their patients. With a strong background in healthcare-centered IT and construction, she can see the big picture as well as the small details.  She has worked closely with clinicians of all levels in understanding their needs and processes and planning the best way to meet the needs of their patients.

 

What is your discipline? Do you have a specific specialty within that field? 

 

Medical Equipment Planning.  I’m a generalist.  I do find that I will have projects of a similar nature that seem to follow one another across disparate clients and locations for whatever reason.   

 

Tell us about your career as a whole. 

 

I started out in IT many moons ago in a data center.  Following a reduction in force, I landed an IT role with Providence Health and began my career within the healthcare industry.  After several  years with IT, I took a lateral transfer into Construction Management.  During a project expanding the Emergency Department, the facility’s Capital Construction Procurement person left the organization.  I learned all about medical equipment very quickly out of necessity since keeping the project going fell on my shoulders.  I did eventually take on an official Capital Construction Procurement role and have been in Medical Equipment Planning and Project Management since.

 

What are some noteworthy projects you’ve worked on, or noteworthy clients you’ve been partnered with? If applicable, were any of these projects or clients connected to your geographical location?

 

I have lived in California all my life, and, therefore, most of my projects have also been in California with the challenges and nuances related to buildings under the watchful eye of HCAI/OSHPD.  I have had the opportunity over my career to work on some amazing projects, from the Disney Family Cancer Center in my early days to the Weill Neuroscience Center at UCSF Mission Bay.   

 

My clients have been both private and public entities:  

-Providence Health, obviously since that’s where it all started  

-Antelope Valley Hospital  

-Camp Pendleton Hospital 

-Baptist Health and Cox Health in the southern US  

-Trinity Health and Northwell Health in the Northeast  

-Stanford and some of the University of California campuses: San Francisco, Davis, Irvine, San Diego 

 

How do you see the medical equipment planning space evolving (short term or long term)? 

 

More and more types of equipment are gaining the ability to connect and become smart and this goes way beyond surgical integration.  While this allows for a lot of real time data to support and treat patients, it increases the need for robust and reliable infrastructure in facilities.  Making provisions for future infrastructure needs in new construction is a bit simpler than redeveloping an existing space.  Understanding how it all connects both from a data and a utility perspective is going to become more and more important.  Bringing that understanding and knowledge to the table as early as possible is critical to the success of a project. 

 

One fun fact about yourself. 

 

I’m a nerd that writes creative fiction within the tabletop role playing game industry for fun. Recently published is the Darkenhaven city box set from GooeyCube.