Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) inverts the procurement question. Because the multi-party agreement binds owner, architect, and constructor (and often key trades) into one relational contract before the design is fully formed, the owner cannot buy a finished scope at a fixed price. Instead the owner procures a team — the people and firms who will collaboratively define the work — and then commissions a short, paid Validation phase to convert program, budget, and feasibility into a single shared commitment before the parties lock the risk/reward economics. This article covers how owners qualify and select that team, how the validation procurement is structured, and what is unique about running this path for an acute-care healthcare program.
The defining move of IPD procurement is that qualifications and team chemistry govern selection, not a competitive lump-sum bid. A hard-bid award optimizes for the lowest price against a complete design; IPD has no complete design at award and deliberately refuses to make price the deciding variable, because the price is something the team will co-produce through target-value design after they are on board.
Owners therefore run a best-value, qualifications-based selection (QBS-style) process aimed at answering different questions:
Price still appears in the selection package, but as fee transparency and a profit/contingency proposal, not a competitive bid on the work. The owner is evaluating the team's proposed profit (which becomes the at-risk pool), their overhead and general-conditions structure, and the rate transparency they are willing to operate under — the open-book economics that make the risk/reward model auditable. The mechanics of how that profit-at-risk and the shared pool work are covered in the contract sibling and are not repeated here.
IPD assembles the team in a deliberate sequence rather than the linear architect-then-contractor handoff of design-bid-build.
Primary (signatory) parties. The owner first secures the core multi-party signatories — typically owner, architect, and construction manager/general contractor — who will execute the single relational agreement. Many owners select architect and constructor together or in close sequence, sometimes evaluating pre-formed or self-assembled teams, precisely because the working relationship between designer and builder is the asset being bought.
Key trade partners / design-assist subcontractors. IPD pulls the high-impact, design-heavy trades into the team early — far earlier than traditional delivery. In healthcare these are predictably mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, low-voltage/technology, and the medical-equipment and prefabrication players — the trades whose coordination drives an acute-care project's cost, schedule, and infection-control risk. They may be brought in as additional signatories to the relational agreement or under aligned design-assist contracts that mirror the risk/reward terms. Their early procurement is itself a qualifications-based exercise, since these partners are co-designers, not just installers.
A typical onboarding sequence:
| Stage | Who joins | Selection basis |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Core team | Owner, architect, CM/GC | Qualifications + team fit + fee/profit transparency |
| 2 — Key trades | MEP, fire protection, technology, equipment, prefab/structure | Qualifications + design-assist capability + aligned economics |
| 3 — Supporting | Commissioning agent, specialty consultants, equipment/IT vendors | Qualifications; aligned where collaboration is heavy |
Owners commonly run IPD team selection in stages that progressively narrow on capability and behavior: