Stephen King,  President of Pacific Medical Building Real Estate Services, posted a thoughtful article to the PMB website this week entitled “Trends in Smart Building Operations Analogous to Trends in Healthcare.”  PMB is one of California’s leading providers of real estate management services in the Medical Office Building (“MOB”) segment of commercial real estate.  King writes:

“The use of technology and “smart building” operating systems are transforming the business of managing medical office buildings. For decades, the traditional property management model has been reactive, much like our healthcare delivery system. Property managers address complaints and fix problems as they arise. Maintenance personnel address comfort issues and repair things that break. We are treating building “symptoms” as opposed to looking at the whole “patient.”

Despite the fact that buildings are more recently monitored through building automation systems and energy management programs, the missing link has always centered-around what managers do with that data. Utilizing the latest in technology, property managers and building engineers can now use this data to derive insights that turn “smart” buildings into intelligent buildings.”

He has gained this experience with building operational analytics by engaging Altura Associates, a energy management services firm that uses the SkySpark analytics platform from SkyFoundry for ongoing building commissioning, in a process it calls Connected Building Commissioning (CBCx). Matt Schwartz of Altura explained more about CBCx in a panel discussion this week led by CoR Advisors. Read more about how Altura works with SkyFoundry in this summary of the conversation.