CHICAGO-In the first part of our report on a discussion titled, “New Strategies in Healthcare: The State of the Market,” a panel of healthcare real estate experts discussed what they foresaw as a growing need for new outpatient projects nationwide. The discussion kicked off a recent healthcare real estate conference that took place in Chicago.

As the discussion continued, the panelists noted that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as "Obamacare) and all of its requirements is usurping capital that hospitals and health systems might have spent on new projects. Tina Wardrop, vice president of Health Directions LLC said she is seeing the mandates of “Obamacare … sucking up capital in the area of information technology, and that will be a constraint on what is available to spend on real estate.”

At the same time that hospitals and health systems are feeling the financial effects of healthcare reform, the panelists noted that third-party investors have more capital than ever before to spend on acquiring or developing outpatient facilities, such as medical office buildings. They are hoping, in fact, that the capital needs of health systems and the acquisition desires of investors can come together. While 2013 was a record year for healthcare real estate sales nationwide, hospitals and health systems, for the most part, have remained reluctant to sell, or monetize, outpatient properties that they own.