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Healthcares centers like general hospital, multi-specialty hospital, corporate hospitals, and military hospitals are the most complex of building types. Each center differs with the kind of services rendered and has wide range of functional units. These include diagnostic and treatment functions, such as clinical laboratories, images rendered and ting, emergency rooms, and surgery; healthcare functions,such as food service and
This diversity is reflected in the breadth and specificity of regulations, codes, and oversight that govern healthcare construction and operations. Each of the wide-ranging and constantly evolving functions of a healthcare, including highly complicated mechanical, electrical, and telecommunications systems, requires specialized knowledge and expertise. No one person can reasonably have complete knowledge, which is why specialized consultants play an important role in healthcare planning and design. The basic form of a healthcare is, ideally, based on its functions:
- Bed-related inpatient functions
- Outpatient-related functions
- Diagnostic and treatment functions
- Administrative functions
- Service functions (food, supply)
- Research and teaching functions
The functional units within the healthcare can have competing needs and priorities. Ideally, the design process incorporates direct input from the owner and from key healthcare staff early on in the process. Good healthcare design integrates functional requirements with the human needs of its varied users. Physical relationships between these functions determine the configuration of the healthcare. Certain relationships between the various functions are required—as in the following flow diagrams. Interior Designers should have an understanding of the healthcare system within which the healthcare is being built and if otherwise planning would be in a vacuum.
Healthcare design is almost totally centered on their complex functional requirements. The form and layout of healthcare facilities have to meet the criteria for sterility, segregation of workflow, un-obstruction of emergency routes, nurse observation, patient and staff safety, and many others.
Aesthetics is mostly needed in healthcare centers where patients are vulnerable and staff is always under pressure. However, the challenge is to apply the design principles and elements of aesthetics without compromising on the requirements for sterility, workflow, and infection control.
A basic principle in healthcare zoning is “controlled movement”. Patients, staff, visitors and materials should move throughout healthcares according to certain criteria that meet the requirements to segregate mucky traffic from sanitary traffic. This creates restricted areas or zones where only staff or clean traffic can enter. For organizational and privacy reasons also, patients’ movement is organized into inpatients and outpatients.
Another basic principle is functional proximities and relationships where certain department are required to be adjacent or close to other departments for reasons that relate to patient and staff movement, in both normal and emergency cases.
From simple transportation of a patient on wheelchair to wheeling away a critical patient on bed without disturbing his life support system with doctors and nurses attendance, smoothly silently and swiftly, without jerks and shocks.
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