About the Author
Cynthia Hayward, FAIA, is principal and founder of Hayward & Associates LLC in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a national consulting firm specializing in predesign planning for healthcare facilities. She has assisted hundreds of diverse healthcare organizations over the past 40 years in planning their capital investments economically and efficiently. For 20 years, she was a partner with a healthcare management consulting firm (Chi Systems, Inc. which became The Chi Group) until she founded Hayward & Associates in 2003. Her unique approach integrates facility planning with clinical service planning, operations improvement, and investments in new equipment and technology.
She is also the author of Healthcare Facility Planning: Thinking Strategically. This book, in it second edition, is part of the American College of Healthcare Executives Management Series and is a practical guide for healthcare executives faced with spending millions of dollars to renovate, reconfigure, expand, or replace a healthcare facility.
She has been a speaker at regional, national, and international conferences on issues relating to predesign planning and capital investment — including conferences sponsored by the American College of Healthcare Executives, Healthcare Financial Management Association, American Hospital Association, American Institute of Architects, International Union of Architects, and HBI China.
Cynthia Hayward has a master of architecture degree from the University of Michigan and is a licensed architect (Michigan). She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a founding member of the American College of Healthcare Architects.
Space Planning Methodologies, Guidelines, and Standards
In addition to her consulting, Cynthia Hayward has had a long history in developing space planning methodologies, guidelines, and standards for healthcare facilities — including government agencies and multi-hospital healthcare systems in the United States and Canada.
In the 1980s, she directed a multi-year project under contract with the Canadian Department of National Health and Welfare to develop a series of space planning methodologies — the Evaluation and Space Programming Methodology Series — for use by individual provinces in assessing and planning their healthcare facilities. Although conceived and financed by the Canadian government, these methodologies were widely used by regulatory agencies and facility planners throughout the United States over the subsequent two decades.
Development of the SpaceMed Guide also evolved from her work with the American Institute of Architect's Committee on Architecture for Health (AIA/CAH) when it assumed responsibility for overseeing the Guidelines for Construction and Equipment of Hospitals and Medical Facilities from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1984. Because she was actively involvement with the Programming Subcommittee, the AIA/CAH asked her to write a white paper titled A Generic Process for Projecting Healthcare Space Needs.
This document was published in 1986 and established predesign planning as a formal phase of the architectural design process.
Other Publications
Healthcare Facility Planning: Thinking Strategically
By Cynthia Hayward

This book focuses on predesign planning — a stage of the healthcare facility planning, design, and construction process that is frequently overlooked as organizations eagerly jump from strategic planning into the more glamorous phase of design. Healthcare executives have the greatest opportunity to express a vision for their organization's future during predesign planning, and decisions made during this phase have the greatest impact on long-term operational costs and future flexibility.
This second edition addresses current issues — new financial incentives, fluctuating utilization and demand, constant pressure for technology adoption and deployment, rising turf wars among specialists, intense focus on patient safety, and aging physical plants — that affect the way facilities are planned, financed, and built. Detailed examples, guidelines, and case studies lead the reader step-by-step through the predesign planning process. This book is published by Health Administration Press and is part of the American College of Healthcare Executives Management Series.
Details and purchasing information can be found at the website of the American College of Healthcare Executives.