The Lohfert & Lohfert consortium emerged from the Institute for Function Analysis in the Health System (Institut für Funktionsanalyse im Gesundheitswesen) founded in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1970. With the experience collected in consulting for large hospital projects in Scandinavia in the sixties, Dr. Dr. Peter Lohfert set up a consulting company which managed to forge links between user- and investor-orientated planning guidelines, technical and architectural planning and guidelines coming from architects and engineers. The insights gained from planning the university hospital in Lund (Sweden) and newly constructed large hospital buildings in the Copenhagen area led to the development of a completely new discipline called ”function analysis in hospitals“.

In the early 1970s, the Institute for Function Analysis planned large projects at university hospitals in Bergen (Norway) and Regensburg (Germany), as well as the research facilities in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). The institute's scope of work was extended to regional planning; several large research projects were carried out for the federal government, e.g. the development of room and cost standards for the construction of medical research facilities.

In the mid-1970s the institute's range of activities grew further when structure and rationalization planning, restructuring and reorganization measures were carried out at many university clinics and hospitals. In 1974, an office in Hamburg was opened which was turned into an independent limited company twelve years later.

In the second half of the seventies, the geographical area of activity was widened to include Austria where another company office was opened in Vienna. We took an integral part in many Austrian projects: new planning of the AKH in Vienna, master and detail plan for the university hospital in Graz and many more.

The institute was a pioneer in the introduction of computer-based methods in hospital planning. With the help of planning systems specifically designed for health systems and intensive cooperation with federal and state ministries, we were able to develop standards and norms which essentially redesigned the hospital planning landscape in Germany.

By the end of the 1980s the emphasis in hospital planning shifted towards efficiency audits, analytical staffing calculations and other organizational tasks which were mainly controlled from the Hamburg office. On January 1, 1987 the office in Hamburg was transformed into a GmbH (Limited Company) to form an independent legal corporation.

Efficiency audits developed into modern medical-economic tools used at many hospitals to secure appropriate funding. The Hamburg institute specialized in the introduction of process-orientated medical-economic methods, combining them with medical supply control (MES®) and Standard Operating Procedures (StOP®), thus enabling a revenue-effective operation of hospitals and medical research facilities in the age of DRG. The institute in Copenhagen continued to work on more general aspects of planning and building medical facilities such as target and structure planning and master plans for university hospitals. Another priority was health care facilities with a special emphasis on room, function and organization plans.

At the end of 1999 the Copenhagen institute became Lohfert & Lohfert AS and in 2002 the institute in Hamburg became Lohfert & Lohfert AG.