UNC Health Blue Ridge Wins Excellence in Health Care Facility Management Award
COLUMBUS, OH (August 1, 2025) — The American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE), a professional membership group of the American Hospital Association, is proud to announce that UNC Health Blue Ridge has been named the recipient of the 2025 Excellence in Health Care Facility Management (FM Excellence) Award.
The Excellence in Health Care Facility Management Award is one of the highest honors given by the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE), a professional membership group of the American Hospital Association (AHA). Recipients of the award exemplify how facility managers and caregivers join together to identify an issue and create a proactive and viable approach that improves patient care and satisfaction through innovation in facility management operations.
Each year, the FM Excellence Award honors individuals or facilities teams that implement innovative programs or processes to optimize the health care physical environment and enhance patient care. UNC Health Blue Ridge received the award during the Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference, held July 27–30 in Columbus, Ohio.
Previous award recipients include esteemed organizations such as Boston Medical Center Health System, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Banner Health, Yale New Haven Health, Owensboro Health Regional Hospital, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Texas Children's Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital, and Beebe Healthcare.
For 120 years, UNC Health Blue Ridge has served as the nexus of health care in rural Western North Carolina. The hospital’s newly completed six-story patient tower, located on the main campus in Morganton, was designed to meet the needs of a growing patient population and modernize the hospital’s infrastructure. Completed in August 2024, the expansion increased the hospital’s footprint from 338,060 to 557,181 square feet. The new facility includes 30 updated intensive care unit and emergency department (ED) rooms, dedicated behavioral health spaces, and centralized inpatient care. It also increased capacity to 214 inpatient beds and supported the hospital’s successful designation as a Level III trauma center.
“I’m incredibly honored to receive this award on behalf of an extraordinary team,” said Deanne Avery, CHC, CHFM, EDAC, director of planning, design, construction, and real estate. “The UNC Health Blue Ridge pavilion project has been one of the most meaningful efforts of my career—not just because of its scope or complexity, but because of what it represents for the communities we serve. This recognition belongs to the entire project team and the outstanding partners who brought vision, dedication, and deep care to every detail.”
The project team enacted an adaptive and highly collaborative design process, inviting perspectives from a range of clinical and operational teams, using value engineering and incorporating locally sourced, low-maintenance materials. These strategies reinforced values of teamwork, resilience, and innovation, helping the team deliver on its goals in the face of extraordinary obstacles, including disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, labor shortages, supply chain issues, and significant internal leadership changes.
The internal redesign deployed an evidence-based approach that has already improved clinician workflow and delivered improvements to patient care. To date, patient wait times have decreased by 33%, ED visit durations have dropped by an average of 9 minutes, and centralized inpatient care has enabled a 3% increase in visit volume.
“Together, we created a space that is truly transformative for patient care in our region,” Avery added.
The facility also incorporates modern technologies such as a digital communication system with electronic signage, as well as adaptations to reduce operational expenses, promote resiliency, and meet energy reduction goals. These include high-efficiency HVAC systems, occupancy-based lighting, and water-saving infrastructure, as well as stormwater management and streamlined mechanical systems to further reduce long-term maintenance expenses.
“It is a high honor to receive the FM Excellence Award,” says Taylor Benay, Director of Regulatory at Hexmodal and a member of ASHE’s Awards and Recognition Task Force. “The task force carefully reviews all entries, and UNC Health Blue Ridge stood out. The facilities management team engaged the local community for ongoing feedback. They provided incentives for current staff, patients, city officials, and potential patients to have a voice throughout the project. They took this feedback, considered the options, and made adjustments even as the project progressed."
UNC Health Blue Ridge (www.unchealthblueridge.org) is a not-for-profit community healthcare system, providing advanced healthcare and wellness services from more than 50 locations across a three-county region of Western North Carolina. We are the only Level III Trauma Center in the region, offering advanced trauma services close to home. The system includes one hospital with two locations and a continuing care retirement community. Nearly 150 primary care physicians, physician specialists, and extenders in the Blue Ridge Medical Group combine with other physicians on the Medical Staff to serve patients in the region. UNC Health Blue Ridge provides graduate medical education programs for medical school graduates and students in allopathic and osteopathic medicine. UNCBR is affiliated with UNC Health System (www.unchealthcare.org), a not-for-profit integrated healthcare system owned by the state of North Carolina and based in Chapel Hill.
