News Release: Medical campuses of tomorrow: designing for time outside the exam room

New report projects that Americans will spend 20 billion hours at outpatient medical facilities over the next decade; architects say it’s time to redesign those spaces

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Oct. 13, 2026) — Americans make about 1 billion physician office visits a year and spend more than 2 billion hours a year getting to them, waiting for them and filling the time around them. At that pace, the next decade adds up to more than 20 billion hours spent in and around outpatient medical facilities, according to a new report released today from RDC, an award-winning architecture firm dedicated to making everyday places extraordinary.

The report, “Connected Care: Designing the Experience Around Health,” estimates that more than 80% of the time surrounding a typical doctor visit happens outside the exam room, from traveling and parking to waiting, picking up prescriptions and accommodating the schedules of patients and caregivers. Yet most outpatient medical facilities are not designed with this broader experience in mind.

“Today, employees, patients and visitors don‘t have a reason to stay when the clinical day ends or convenient amenities to access before, during and after appointments” said Sean Slater, AIA, Senior Principal and San Diego Office Principal-in-Charge at RDC. “We should instead reimagine these standalone facilities as welcoming places that give people space to connect, gather and return on their own time.”

RDC is reimagining the current design approach of outpatient medical facilities to instead become mixed-use medical districts. The architecture firm calls this design approach Connected Care: planning retail, food, services, hospitality and public space together with the medical program so medical campuses become a vibrant destination embedded in the surrounding community, rather than an isolated place people visit only for care.

“Based on current market factors, the next generation of outpatient medical facilities will be defined by what happens beyond the exam room,” said Slater. “Healthcare systems, developers and property owners have a unique opportunity to create medical districts that support everyday life during and beyond appointment hours and are aligned with a growing, built-in audience.”

Changing demographics and medical care projections further underscore the Connected Care approach. The report highlights that one in five Americans is projected to be 65 or older by 2030 and eight of the 10 fastest-growing healthcare service lines are outpatient-focused, which is aligned with what the research says. This means a larger and steadier stream of patients and caregivers accessing outpatient facilities beyond traditional hospital settings in the long term. As demand for outpatient care expands, the report says, healthcare uses should be treated as the foundation for a vibrant, mixed-use district rather than simply an anchor tenant disconnected from daily life.

Medical districts following the Connected Care design approach are particularly relevant in markets where outpatient demand, healthcare employment, population growth and medical real estate investment are converging. As noted in the report, Phoenix, Ariz., has been identified among the nation’s leading markets for outpatient facility growth and medical office absorption, while San Diego, Calif., combines a highly constrained medical office market with a growing healthcare workforce. The report also highlights that Washington, D.C., led the nation in medical outpatient building investment in 2025, while Houston, Texas, and Philadelphia, Pa., continue to demonstrate significant demand through strong medical office absorption.

RDC is already applying the Connected Care approach in its work by collaborating with Texas Medical Center to integrate experiential retail and hospitality into the world’s largest medical campus. At the medical campus, where more than 100,000 people work each day and 10 million patient visits happen each year, the firm studied how people move through the campus and what they need before, between and after appointments. That research informed plans for a 123,000-square-foot retail and hospitality district woven through six interconnected parks, bringing dining, fitness, entertainment, services and gathering space into the medical environment.

The Connected Care design approach is a practical application of RDC’s eight tenets of community-based development, which guide the firm’s work. The eight tenets include economic balance & phasing, connections vs. intersections, community needs, intensity vs. density, neighborly adjacencies, community microeconomics, habitat reconstruction and movement vs. traffic.

“Connected Care: Designing the Experience Around Health“ and accompanying materials are available at https://rdcollaborative.com/connected-care/.

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About RDC

Founded in 1979, RDC is an award-winning full-service architecture and planning firm headquartered in Long Beach, Calif. RDC is a leader in store planning, retail districts, health care and in planning the mix of uses that create community. To learn more about RDC, visit rdcollaborative.com and follow RDC on Instagram and LinkedIn.