Introduction
Hospitals are institutions that provide health treatment and nursing care for injured or sick people. A hospital needs clinical and non-clinical employees to perform various everyday duties. Staffs work in different areas to maintain hospital premises, handle administrative responsibilities, and mainly care for the sick. Doctors use medical tools and proper training to upgrade patients’ health. Professionals are the critical requirements for the care of ill patients and the prevention of a wide range of sicknesses. A hospital offers nutritional diagnostics and nursing services, providing patients with medical supplies and pharmaceutical care. This discussion will explain the essential points to be considered when planning and designing a new hospital.
Body
Medical facilities should be designed to follow architectural practices that conform to the appropriate codes within the health professional practice and fulfil prescribed functional programs. It is crucial to consider the size of the space needed. Health facilities often need large areas to see patients, keep medical records, and waiting rooms for the patients (Pilosof, 2021). Hospital and health facilities’ space planning and design require serious oversight due to patient safety, and as a requirement of health, technology advancement and crucial regulations need to be supported. Medical facility layout should enhance staff efficiency by minimizing the travelling distance between the most used spaces and logistics system, which is efficient for food distribution. Building contractors and designers should consider multi-purpose spaces to reduce travel time. Compliance and expandability, modes of treatment, and health need to keep changing; therefore, it is essential to consider how much space will be required whenever there can be a need for expansion.
Choosing suitable materials is an essential factor that needs to be considered when building a medical facility. When choosing materials to be used in building, it is crucial to know how easy they are to care for, the cost of the materials, and whether they can be sterilized or cleaned (Sacks et al., 2018). Patients and other people can visit medical facilities carrying viruses and germs that can infect health premises. There is a need to make sure that the selected materials do not hold these germs and viruses. Research should be carried out for materials that are best suitable for health facilities and should be included in the building plan and design.
It is crucial to consider the accessibility of the health institution through different modes of transport. A hospital should consider accessibility through vehicles, aeroplanes, trains, motorcycles, walking, and other possible means of transportation. Patients may need to be transferred to or out of the facility while in bed, on crutches, or even in a wheelchair. For such cases, there is a need to ensure the facility is made accessible through ways that can be utilized to take care of the patients. When planning about the accessibility, it is essential to design elevators, ramps, or bays for the ambulance to assist those unable to walk right into the hospital.
Security features should be considered since the hospital treats patients who may be mentally ill, and sometimes they may get aggressive and attack the staff, doctors, or even the injured patients. To avoid such incidents, medical facilities need to have secure spaces or rooms to treat such patients and ensure stakeholders’ safety (Ulrich et al., 2018). Construction of buildings should be of high quality to avoid risking the life and security of the patients, staff, and public. The installation should remain undamaged and withstand different weather and other situations. Every floor within the facility should have at least two exits, which are supposed to face directly outside the building. Ceilings, walls and floor shall be of quality materials that allow fire resistance, ease of cleaning and durability.
Appropriate considerations for the environment where the hospital needs to be located should be readily accessible to the society and be free from undue floods, dust, smoke, noise, and repellent odour. They should not be near children’s playgrounds, airports, disposal plants, railroads, freight yards, and industrial plants. Occupancy should be considered while planning to have a new hospital since a building designed for any other aim cannot be used since medical facilities must comply with the law and approved zoning ordinances.
The waste management system should be considered since health facilities produce a lot of waste that needs appropriate disposal. The garbage produced can negatively affect the health of patients and medical facilities. A waste management system in the facilities will help avoid challenges like poisoning. Waste disposal for liquid waste should be through the appropriate public sewerage system. In contrast, solid waste should be collected from where it should be treated and disposed of properly. Cleanliness should be considered before building a hospital because maintaining a clean environment in the hospital demonstrates professional healthcare with the ability to accomplish the patients’ safety (Silva et al., 2021). Sufficient water supply should be considered while establishing health facilities to ensure no water rationing and water shortages. The water supply should be safe for human consumption, portable, adequate, and connected to all the appropriate spaces.
Adequate ventilation should be considered to provide appropriate comfort for staff, patients, and the public. Rahman et al. (2021) suggest the minimum ventilation requirements that the World Health Organization should recommend, as shown in the table below.
Hick et al. (2020) suggest the need to have measures for detecting fire, such as smoke detectors in ceilings and alarms in walls and peepholes. Devices for putting off fire, such as fire extinguishers, should be visible for more accessible and fast access. Lighting is a point to be considered where all places in medical facilities should be provided with sufficient light to promote proper accommodation, comfort, and patient recovery while helping employees perform their duties (Pardeshi et al., 2020). A hospital should have signage such as a visual system that is effective for visual aids and devices to provide details, direction, identity, warning, and other health facilities services.
Wards should ensure there are enough rooms to ensure gender separation. Separate toilets should be maintained for staff, patients, females, and males. There should be effective programs for building maintenance. Equipment, facilities, and buildings should always remain in a good state of repair. Proper care helps minimize unexpected breakdowns of equipment, facilities, and buildings. During the construction, there is a need to improve the sustainability of the facility. An excellent example can be the additional use of solar energy panels to minimize environmental impact on the surrounding areas.
Health facilities and hospitals should provide suitable parking spaces. Medical facilities should provide and maintain an elegant, healthy environment for patients, staff, and the public, which can be achieved through appropriate housekeeping. Health facilities should have adequate visual seclusion and comply with the acceptable sound level to attain privacy requirements in selected areas allowing the authority to conduct appropriate tasks.
A hospital should have an outer zone that can be located near the facility’s entrance and be easily accessed by the public for an emergency, administrative, and outer patient services. The second zone should be strategically placed near the outer zone to quickly receive workload from the outer zone, such as radiology and laboratory services. Inner zone areas need to be private but should be accessed with ease by visitors since they allow management and nursing care for patients. The deep zone should be separated from public areas since it performs intensive care, surgical, and nursery services, but it should be accessible to the outer, second, and inner sectors. Service zone should be placed in areas with regular services since it provides mortuary, dietary, housekeeping, maintenance, and motor pool services.
Different areas of a health facility should be related to other functional areas. An excellent example can be an emergency area placed on the ground floor to ensure easier access. Administrative services should be offered near the entrance of the medical facility, and offices need to be placed in private areas. Surgical services, operating room, and dressing room should be located far from public accessibility to avoid exposure of open wounds to risk, infections, and re-infections (Lu et al., 2021). The nursing area should be where patient movement and recovery observation can be done quickly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, health facilities are crucial as they are responsible for providing public care. With the appropriate considerations, positive impacts will be realized with ease, and human health will significantly improve. Awareness should be raised to the general public to ensure all the appropriate considerations are made while planning to establish health facilities.
Reference List
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Lu, Y., Li, Y., Zhou, H., Lin, J., Zheng, Z., Xu, H., Lin, B., Lin, M., and Liu, L., 2021. Reasonable measures to monitor and alarm nosocomial SARS‐CoV‐2 infection due to poor ventilation. Indoor air, 31(6), pp.1833-1842.
Pardeshi, P., Jadhav, B., Singh, R., Kapoor, N., Bardhan, R., Jana, A., David, S., and Roy, N., 2020. Association between architectural parameters and burden of tuberculosis in three resettlement colonies of M-East Ward, Mumbai, India. Cities & health, 4(3), pp.303-320.
Pilosof, N.P., 2021. Building for change: Comparative case study of hospital architecture. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 14(1), pp.47-60.
Rahman, N.M.A., Haw, L.C. and Fazlizan, A., 2021. A literature review of naturally ventilated public hospital wards in tropical climate countries for thermal comfort and energy saving improvements. Energies, 14(2), p.435.
Sacks, R., Eastman, C., Lee, G. and Teicholz, P., 2018. BIM handbook: A guide to building information modeling for owners, designers, engineers, contractors, and facility managers. John Wiley & Sons.
Silva, A.L.P., Prata, J.C., Walker, T.R., Duarte, A.C., Ouyang, W., Barcelò, D. and Rocha-Santos, T., 2021. Increased plastic pollution due to COVID-19 pandemic: Challenges and recommendations. Chemical Engineering Journal, 405, p.126683.
Ulrich, R.S., Bogren, L., Gardiner, S.K. and Lundin, S., 2018. Psychiatric ward design can reduce aggressive behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 57, pp.53-66.