ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Re-evaluating healthcare design post-pandemic
Since September 2019, when the Government announced funding for a major hospital building programme, Trusts throughout the UK have outlined strategic cases for redevelopment projects. Yet, with the recent outbreak of COVID-19, ask Jane McElroy and Bryan Langlands, Principals at architectural practice, NBBJ, how can Trusts adapt their briefs to account for design changes and the need to flex for future challenges in the long term?
Learning from the response to COVID-19, and with further future pandemics deemed highly likely, the implications for the design of hospitals – whether renovations, alterations, or new construction and planning – are being considered and rethought. One priority is to create true flexibility within our healthcare settings to care for surges of infectious patients, while protecting other patients and staff. For this, we have to think beyond just the patient room, with consideration for protection and isolation at multiple scales. Below, we outline four ideas on how to create more flexible and safe healthcare spaces, gathered from insights working with healthcare across the world.
1 The Building Flow and overflow
Separation of flows is one of the most important steps we take in clinical design, but it is often difficult to achieve – due to space constraints and infrastructure limitations. We believe that there will be a greater need to incorporate ‘on-stage’ and ‘off-stage’ organisation, and separation of
Comprehensive exterior wayfinding design.
flows for ‘clean’, ‘dirty’, ‘patient’, ‘staff’, and ‘visitor’. Corridor widths need to be considered again to allow for safe distancing. Additional entrances and exits into buildings and areas within buildings will be introduced in order to provide the ability to separate, control, and direct different populations. Wayfinding, which has always been important, will now need to be designed so that it is flexible or easily changed, and supplemented in order to direct flows on an emergent temporary basis. Rethinking wayfinding signage from
the hospital site entrance, car park, and throughout the interior of the hospital, could help infection control, and decrease patient stress.
Large, open non-clinical areas such as conference rooms, cafeterias, and lobbies, will be designed with infrastructure to accommodate surge patients, or provide areas for triage of large numbers of people. Space adjacent to hospitals, where triage tents can be erected, or where trailers for supplies can be located, will be identified and designated.
n Clinical support n Care team stations n Workflow n Compartments
Left: Emergency department – connected suites. Right: Emergency department – suites designed as compartments. October 2020 Health Estate Journal 45
©NBBJ
©NBBJ
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