Dive Brief:

• The healthcare industry is shifting its spending focus from health information technology to construction, Modern Healthcare reported.

• “I'm not aware of any market where there's not activity,” Dick Miller, president of Nashville architecture firm Earl Swensson Associates, told the magazine. “It's definitely picking up.”

• Much of the activity is focused on outpatient services and freestanding emergency departments, according to the magazine. And more hospitals are turning to the bond market to raise money for expanding their campuses.

Dive Insight:

The building boom is a response to an improving overall economy and a focus in the healthcare field to provide care at a lower cost.

In addition, health system officials “have more certainty around the future of the Affordable Care Act,” the magazine said, so they are restarting projects that were on hold and are hiring more project managers.

Much of the building is designed to accommodate a rise in specialty services. Rural hospitals operating in communities with older populations, for example, are spending on skilled nursing facilities, while suburban providers are responding to a demand for freestanding emergency departments for patients who want to receive urgent care locally.