Brian Anderson and His Team Are the Built Environment at Option Care Health

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Brian Anderson’s real estate, facilities, and security teams at Option Care Health employ one unifying mindset that allows the rest of their organization to focus on their own roles.

“We are the built environment,” Anderson says. “My teams know they’re here to support others so they can focus on patient care. That’s it. That is our mission, and it’s what we’re good at.”

Anderson, director of real estate, facility management, and security at Option Care Health, is flanked by a team of discipline leaders, including Silja Yanz, Kyle Hoch, and Brian Hook who oversee roughly 230 pharmacies and infusion centers across the country. These aren’t just any run-of-the-mill facilities requirements, either.

Option Care Health pharmacies require pharmaceutical compounding conducted in completely sterile environments, resulting in environmental controls that are complex and catered to the critical environments they support. All cleanrooms adhere to numerous Cleanroom regulations and use cleaning agents that Anderson said can eat stainless steel if left unattended.

“Our rooms are great. The biggest risk we have from a contamination standpoint has nothing to do with the rooms themselves, it’s the people in them,” he explains.

Therein lies the rub. Anderson says each of the billions of microscopic organic molecules on the people entering those cleanrooms pose the biggest threat to contaminating the spaces his team has so carefully crafted. Option Care Health adheres to strict procedures for the “donning and doffing” of cleanroom attire that must be worn at all times. Anderson says Hoch has earned the nickname “Captain Cleanroom” many, many times over due to his in-depth knowledge of these unique spaces and procedures and ability to troubleshoot with swiftness and attention to detail.

“I knew Brian and I were going to get along well from the second we met,” Hoch says. “He recognized I was very young and green in some areas and invested the time and energy to cultivate that. It has allowed me to learn an incredible amount from him as I evolve as a leader, and I hope I can have a similar dynamic with Orlando Brown and Cedric Macon who make up our Option Care Health Cleanroom Facilities Team.”

Elsewhere on the team, Silja Yanz oversees design and construction, the architects (Whitney Architects), the engineering team (Stantec), and the branding teams that support capital projects across the organization. Anderson says Yanz has an incredible talent for the aesthetics of designing a facility from office spaces to warehouse environments. Yanz says her gift (or curse, depending on who is asked), is her curiosity, stubbornness, and strong desire to leave things better than she found them.

“The design and construction team makes it our personal business to understand the needs of the end users and then [aligns] those needs to the broader framework of the vision and standards of the organization,” Yanz says.

Anderson’s final part of the team is account leader Brian Hook from CBRE, Inc. who leads a team that oversees repair and maintenance for all Option Care Health facilities. Anderson knew Hook from his extensive work in professional associations and says “catching” Hook was a huge professional win for the rest of his team.

“Brian knows he can count on me and my honesty,” Hook says. “We build our plans together with a collaborative team approach, always looking for blind spots to ensure we are working together toward the same goal. It helps that CBRE is the world leader in real estate and facility management with all the resources and tools our team and clients need to be successful.”

What does it take to succeed on Anderson’s team? Along with living the “built environment” mindset, the leader says he’s mainly looking for the right personality, not just the qualifications.

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“We are a casual, friendly, and incredibly diverse team,” Anderson says. “You’ve got to have a servant-leader mentality to succeed in this environment. You need to maintain a dedication and strong desire to do great things in support of patient care.”

Anderson jokes that his team has heard “We are the built environment” so many times they’ve probably dreamt about it, but it unifies his own organization under the perfect banner to succeed and take accountability for their side of the business.

Facilities is an industry Anderson takes very seriously, and his work outside his day job underlines it. Anderson is the past president of his local chapter of the International Facility Management Association, an organization he’s been part of since its founding in the early eighties, and the leader is truly a champion of the industry.

Kenneth Schwieterman, sector director CBRE Enterprise Global Services, highlights how Anderson’s leadership and passion for the industry allows him to lead a strong team. “CBRE’s relationship with Option Care Health is one of partnership,” he says. “Brian Anderson does a terrific job of creating a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement through transparent conversations. We are truly one team with the objective of providing superior patient care.”

“What we do is a very unique, dedicated practice to supporting business,” Anderson explains. “Becoming a member of IFMA is a standard in the business as is the crown jewel of facility management, the CFM Credential. Being certified by them is like passing the bar exam. I push education in the space to anyone that I can.”

That work is incredibly important to Anderson, but it’s a wonder he’s able to find any time for it. He and his team have roughly four hundred projects in some phase of completion at present, including several new pharmacies coming online midyear. Anderson is especially proud of a Tampa, Florida-located project that involved finding a new home for a pharmacy whose location was anything but desirable to patients.

“We decided to take a chance on a new space that is going to be the most modern facility we’ve created thus far,” Anderson says. “It’s a beautiful 22,000 square-foot building redeveloped by Pannenbier and designed by DAG Architects (core & shell) and Whitney Architects & Stantec (interiors). The facility will have redundant cleanrooms by CE Group and mechanical systems that will make it capable of operating 24/7. It’s an incredible turnaround story.”

The design team is preparing for a major design standards initiative taking a deep dive into the programmatic and workflow requirements of the pharmacies to ensure that it’s doing everything it can to build locations that embrace the best of design, technology, and patient care. The facilities team is also working on a master plan that will unite processes and ensure excellence for active projects and alignment to strategic goals for the years ahead.

Those are only a few of the over four hundred ongoing projects at present, but Anderson’s team certainly has enough to keep them occupied for the years ahead. Whatever the site, wherever the location, the rest of Option Care Health can practice their best work knowing that the built environment is covered.

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