This was our fourth year reaching out to the healthcare design industry to see how business shaped up in the previous year and what the collective feeling is about where things stand in the present, via our 2013 Healthcare Design Corporate Rankings Survey.

In terms of the results, business in 2012 was largely the same as in 2011. Trends that emerged two years ago—like growth in both renovations over new construction and projects with smaller square footages than the megahospitals of past—continued.

To read the full results and analysis, see “2013 HCD Corporate Rankings: Industry Continues To Ride The Tide.” For a full list of rankings for architecture/engineering and construction firms, see “2013 HCD Corporate Rankings: Complete Results.”

And while we asked a lot of the same questions we had in previous incarnations of the survey (including requests for stats ranging from gross billings to number of RFPs to contracts signed), we changed some things up this year, too.

To get a better feel for exactly what our readers are working on, we requested a lot more specifics. For example, this year we went beyond the “projects at a glance” perspective of hospital vs. MOB vs. ambulatory care center, and dove into precisely what types of facilities in all of those categories are being built, from outpatient surgery centers to specialty hospitals. Speaking of specialty hospitals, we asked for more on that, too: What specific types of specialty hospitals are being constructed?

And within the facilities industry members are either planning or building/renovating, we asked what types of spaces you’re focusing on? Is it patient, staff, family/public areas, or back-of-house? For those all-important patient spaces (which represented 50 percent of 2012 projects), we asked respondents to dive in even further and report what types of design features were included in patient rooms, specifically—EMRs, medication storage, daylighting, inboard or outboard toilets, etc.

Overall, I believe the result is a much more cohesive view of our industry that’s representative of what all of you were doing in 2012. But more important, it’s a baseline. I look forward to returning to the results next year to see what changed, and what didn’t.

We’ll need your help in the process, too—not just your firm’s participation in the survey (although I certainly encourage it), but to provide feedback on the changes we’ve made. For example, for our list of patient room design elements, is there anything we’re missing? Or are there facility types you’re working on that aren’t on our list?

A roundup of the results is included in the analysis article “2013 HCD Corporate Rankings: Industry Continues To Ride The Tide,” and within that article’s Image Gallery are all of the charts that show the options for each of our questions. The article will also appear within a special supplement being published in July 2013 print issue of Healthcare Design.

Please share your thoughts, either in the comments below or by email at jsilvis@vendomegrp.com.