In this article, Hospaccx Healthcare Consultancy has mentioned the needs of specialized architects and designers for healthcare designing. If you need a refined market and financial feasibility or any other study related to healthcare, you can contact Hospaccx Healthcare Business Consulting Pvt. Ltd on hospaccx.india@gmail.com or you can visit our website on hospaccxconsulting.com
INTRODUCTION
“Facilitating patient safety and maximizing their quality of care is the goal for the architect, designer, contractor, and consultant.”An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. A designer is a person who plans the look or workings of something before it being made, by preparing drawings or plans.
Healthcare is filled with complicated challenges. Increasingly, healthcare companies and institutions are attacking these challenges with cross-disciplinary teams, doctors, data scientists, marketers, quality officers, financial experts, information technologists, and more. An often missing member of these teams is design leaders. Designers can provide an invaluable role in healthcare, but too often healthcare does not take advantage of all that design can offer.
A truly successful project is one where goals are identified early on and where interdependencies of all building systems are coordinated concurrently from the planning and programming phase. This applies more crucially to hospitals than another type of buildings, because not only it pertains to occupant’s well being, but also, Hospitals are the most complex and most regulated of all building types. Each of the wide-ranging and constantly evolving functions of a hospital including complicated mechanical, electrical, and communications systems, requires specialized knowledge and expertise. No one person can reasonably have complete knowledge, which is why specialized consultants play an important role in Hospital Planning and Design.
Unlike other commercial establishments, hospitals are made up of several functional units, each of which has vastly different requirements and functions. By taking proper measures and precautions while designing the interior can make a hospital more comfortable, convenient, and efficient, whereas a bad interior design can impede the proper execution of different activities. The hospital design plays a very crucial role in designing the hospitals. The hospital interior design focuses on both the allocation and utilization of space, specifically tailoring it to the needs of the people using and occupying it.
The designers also have to be an advocate for the patients, visitors, support staff, volunteers, and suppliers who do not generally have direct input into the design. Good hospital design integrates functional requirements with the human needs of its varied users. A decision on Hospital building must be based on multiple factors besides cost, like fire protection, strength of construction material, hygiene, building health, environmental protection, sound isolation, energy saving, durability, and utilization rate, among others.
The physical design and infrastructure of a Hospital is an important component of its Infection Control measure. Thus, this must be a prerequisite to require these into consideration from the initial conception and planning stages of the building. Hospitals should have an adequate supply of Isolation and Negative-pressure rooms’ inwards, Emergency department, and ICUs. By controlling and ensuring adequate sanitization of the environment of the host, Hospital authorities can reduce the incidence of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI). Hand washing has been recommended because the single most practice to regulate HAI and this facility is to be installed in Isolation rooms, General wards, and Observation areas.
ARCHITECTS
Architects specializing in Hospital Design are referred to as Medical Architects. Architects must know the INS and OUTS of drugs and its Technology and understand the stress of patients, relatives, and staff, and are available up with a “Humanistic Building Design which is made by humans for humans.”
Architect should be intimate what goes on functionally in every department (Emergency, Diagnosis and Treatment, Nursing Units, Labs, Pharmacy, ICU, Surgery Services, etc.), conversant in the Healing process, medical equipment, Building codes, fire regulations, etc. It should create within the building good Lighting, Ventilation, and create a pleasing environment. And also, co-ordinate with Hospital Consultants, End Users, and Hospital Administrators aside from the opposite Engineering disciplines (Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Structural, etc. Critical thinking is required to develop an appropriate solution to the planning problem. In the Design Development phase, an Architect should play the role of facilitator forth various contributors. In Contract documents, top quality is often achieved by scrutiny, accountability to the initial program needs by the planning team and the client, alongside careful co-ordination among the technical consultants. The Design Team must be fully involved and have active collaboration, clear and continuous communication, and rigorous attention to details, throughout all phases of the project.
DESIGNERS
So, why does healthcare need designers? Designers have five unique skills that are a mix of instinctual “right brained-ness” and years of formal training.
- Problem-solving — Definitions of design include “to conceive or plan out in the mind”. Designers look to first understand the parameters or conditions in which solutions can be developed. We are comfortable with ambiguity (of which healthcare has a lot). We are “makers” by nature and the process of making can lead to new areas of opportunity. We look to clearly define a problem, and the reasons behind it, before jumping to solutions.
- Communication — At the core of any design curriculum is a foundational communications design class. Design is about understanding your audience and using ways to communicate with them clearly and effectively. We build concepts behind ideas and aspire to convey them in concise and approachable ways.
- Empathy — Designers are empathetic creatures. We understand that it takes hours, days, or longer to truly understand the mind and experiences of a user suffering from a chronic illness. In the complicated world of healthcare, we must not only help patients to move through the system with efficiency, but also consider how they feel and their lives outside of the system.
- Co-creating with users — Knowing when to bring the user into the design process is an art. Too early, and the user will be making decisions based on solely imagination and ideas might be too pie-in-the-sky. Too late, and business or strategic decisions will be laid without much room for big changes or pivotal insights. Designers know when and how to bring users along in the process. They ensure that some questions and activities give users effective entry points into the creative process and allow users to make amorphous ideas concrete.
- Creative Thinking — Designers infuse processes, challenges, and institutions with creative approaches and methods. They are innovative thinkers and may often brainstorm “off-the-wall” ideas that seem unlikely. They bring an arsenal of thought processes that get to “why” and “how” of solutions, not just the “what”.
With these skills, designers add capabilities that healthcare teams may be missing. Moreover, design can have a transformative impact on healthcare because design focuses overwhelmingly on the user.
CONCLUSION
The study concludes that to design or construct a hospital it requires specialized architects and designers as the hospitals are the complicated structure. To design a proper HVAC system, it requires a skilled architect or designer. So, first of all for planning and designing of hospitals, it requires a skilled healthcare consultant.
If you need any support in Planning and Designing a new Hospital or restructuring the existing hospital you can contact us: Hospaccx healthcare business consulting Pvt. Ltd on: hospaccx.india@gmail.com. Or you can visit our website hospaccxconsulting.com
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