flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Designing a health facility for the next pandemic

Coronavirus

Designing a health facility for the next pandemic

Planning with intent is the key to readiness, states Eppstein Uhen Architects, the guide’s author.


By John Caulfield, Senior Editor | May 22, 2020
Planning with intent is the key to readiness, states Eppstein Uhen Architects, the guide’s author.

Making better use of parking lots to regulate who enters a healthcare facility is one of the considerations for controlling the spread of infectious diseases made in a new guide released by the architecture firm EUA. Images: EUA

    

Eppstein Uhen Architects (EUA) has released a 16-page guide that provides pandemic considerations for health facility design. The document focuses on four objectives:

 

1. Reducing patient presentations at facilities, with specific focuses on telehealth, site design and planning, and drive-through testing. For example, the guide’s considerations for reducing patient presentations include using the facility’s parking lot to manage who enters the building. It recommends a single point of entry and exit, a staffed gatehouse to direct and track patients (via smartphone technology), and drive-through services for pharmacies and labs.

The guide emphasizes the importance of drive-through options for controlling who enters a healthcare building.

 

 

2. Isolating infectious patients, and how to prepare vestibules, entries, waiting rooms, and reception areas. The guide recommends larger vestibules to accommodate more functions and equipment, as well as temperature screening, physical distancing, and touchless entry supplemented by hand sanitizer stations and mask dispensers. Planning, the guide states, will also consider “placing a negative pressure multipurpose room adjacent to registration to isolate patients with symptoms of infectious diseases.

Screening patients as they enter a building is imperative.

 

 

3. Improving facilities’ ability to reduce the spread of infection. The guide makes specific planning recommendations for clinics, hospital lobbies, emergency departments, elevators, materials management, and restrooms. Triage areas at the front door will help sort well and unwell patients. One-way patient flow will ensure patients don’t cross paths with potentially unwell patients who are entering the building.

For clinics, EUA favors a “library” model that includes community spaces (e.g., rooms for meetings and group therapies, physical therapy, or for staff break rooms) with access to the building’s main entrance. During a pandemic, a community space would be converted to serve as a buffer between screened and unscreened patients.

 

The guide recommends one-way traffic so that well and unwell patients don't intersect.

 

 

4. Providing surge capacity for high-volume episodes. The guide offers considerations for separating infected patients, providing separate entrances, ventilation (including providing a negative pressure relationship in the infectious side of the unit), and repurposing lower-acuity patient care spaces for increased patient beds.

This diagram of an inpatient nursing unit shows how strategies can be employed to separate non-infectious and infectious patients in the same bed unit.

 

“Planning a building that seeks to fully address all aspects of operations during a pandemic is a major undertaking,” the guide concedes. Therefore, “it is important to be intentional about the decisions each organization makes around pandemic planning for each project.”

Related Stories

Coronavirus | Oct 2, 2020

With revenues drying up, colleges reexamine their student housing projects

Shifts to online learning raise questions about the value of campus residence life.

Coronavirus | Oct 1, 2020

The Weekly show: Decarbonizing Chicago, re-evaluating delayed projects, and the future of the jobsite

The October 1 episode of BD+C's "The Weekly" is available for viewing on demand.

Coronavirus | Sep 28, 2020

Cities to boost spending on green initiatives after the pandemic

More bikeways, car restrictions, mass transit, climate resilience are on tap.

Coronavirus | Sep 28, 2020

Evaluating and investing resources to navigate past the COVID-19 pandemic

As AEC firm leaders consider worst-case scenarios and explore possible solutions to surmount them, they learn to become nimble, quick, and ready to pivot as circumstances demand.

Coronavirus | Sep 24, 2020

The Weekly show: Building optimization tech, the future of smart cities, and storm shelter design

The September 24 episode of BD+C's "The Weekly" is available for viewing on demand.

Coronavirus | Sep 10, 2020

Mobile ordering is a centerpiece of Burger King’s new design

Its reimagined restaurants are 60% smaller, with several pickup options.

Coronavirus | Sep 9, 2020

Prefab: Construction’s secret weapon against COVID-19

How to know if offsite production is right for your project.

Coronavirus | Sep 3, 2020

The Weekly show: JLL's construction outlook for 2020, and COVID-19's impact on sustainability

The September 3 episode of BD+C's "The Weekly" is available for viewing on demand. 

Coronavirus | Sep 1, 2020

6 must reads for the AEC industry today: September 1, 2020

Co-working developers pivot to survive the pandemic, and the rise of inquiry-based learning in K-12 communities.

Coronavirus | Aug 28, 2020

7 must reads for the AEC industry today: August 28, 2020

Hotel occupancy likely to dip by 29%, and pandemic helps cannabis industry gain firmer footing.

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category


MFPRO+ Special Reports

Top 10 trends in affordable housing

Among affordable housing developers today, there’s one commonality tying projects together: uncertainty. AEC firms share their latest insights and philosophies on the future of affordable housing in BD+C's 2023 Multifamily Annual Report.



halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021