May 7, 2026 — Seven years ago, a mega project might be any multi-facility medical development project over $300 million. “Now,” says Joey Khaled, Vice President of Design Phase Services for McCarthy Building Companies, “$300 million is normal.” Khaled, who is watching $1+ billion construction projects appear more regularly, adds that these projects make sound sense for growing health systems.
“Our clients understand that they have to address future needs,” Khaled says. “They can’t just think about today.”
Mega-campuses provide valuable insight into how health systems of all sizes can future-proof facilities to meet the needs of changing populations and evolving technology solutions – insight that health systems can apply to projects around the world. To this end, McCarthy is among the firms that will bring lessons learned from recent mega-campus projects to the upcoming International Federation of Healthcare Engineering (IFHE) World Congress.
From October 17-20, 2026, the IFHE World Congress will bring leaders in healthcare facility design, construction, engineering, operations and real estate management from across the world to New Orleans to share insight and innovation. The event is hosted by the Association of Medical Facility Professionals (AMFP), the U.S. representative to IFHE, in partnership with EmeraldX as a co-located event alongside the Healthcare Design (HCD) Conference + Expo.
Khaled points to the 4.9 million-square-foot pediatric campus in Dallas from Children’s Health and UT Southwestern and the 1.2 million-square foot Harris Health John M. O’Quinn Hospital in Houston as two examples of scale. Campuses like these represent a shift to a master planning approach that seeks to dedicate as much space as possible to accommodate future medical equipment and technology upgrades. Khaled says construction partners are increasingly brought onto projects as early as the programming stage to help map out these space needs.
“If you can’t bring your equipment planner into those meetings early, you’re not able to coordinate through everything that is involved with a piece of equipment,” he points out. “It’s not only where outlets go or what type support services they need; it’s also the pathways into which to get equipment to its final destination. We’ve had to demo areas to ensure equipment had clearance to get through. These moments can cause unnecessary impact to patient care and facilities, but with early planning can be mitigated.”
Khaled adds that “more space” isn’t the only solution for enhancing flexibility. “You have to understand what clients are ultimately trying to achieve when they say ‘flexibility.’ You can’t make everything flexible, but you can get pretty close to hitting all of their goals.”
He points to modular systems as a powerful solution for adding adaptability. Another key strategy: remembering that not everything demands flexibility on opening day. “You can add solutions in the future with minimal impact, but there are a lot of things you want to plan ahead of time to mitigate the impacts of any changes,” Khaled says.
Executives from McCarthy Building will provide deeper insight from their century of experience in healthcare construction as part of the IFHE World Congress session “Building for What’s Next: Future-Ready Healthcare Campuses by Design.” To learn more about scheduled sessions, and to register for the event, visit IFHE at AMFP.
