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Healthcare floor space

Stephanie Williams

Institutional affiliation

03/14/22

Healthcare centers are crucial facilities in any society. In the planning for such centers there are legal and regulatory requirements that have to be considered. One of the regulatory requirements is in ensuring the floor space allows for free interaction and circulation of air. Health care centers are aimed at receiving and attending to patients with all sort of diseases. In most cases, the patients will be admitted for checkup. The patients have different conditions. The healthcare centers hold patients, doctors, nurses, other employees and family members of the patients. The rooms should therefore be built in a way that will not be suffocating. Every floor space should hold only a certain number of people and should be fitted with ventilators. The walls in the patients’ wards should be painted in colors which are not too bright and not dull either. Too bright colors might be distracting to the patient while dark colors do not give hope.

The other legal requirement when building health care centers is in sanitation. This refers to the number of water sinks and toilets the floor space can take. Depending on the intended size of healthcare facility, the number of toilets will increase from the smallest to the largest. When the available floor space is small, the healthcare center can hold only a few toilets (Pérez-Gosende et al, 2021). A healthcare center can be categorized under a social facility and therefore prone to bacteria. Including the number of toilets for every floor space will meet the legal requirement of sanitization and cleanliness. The distance of the toilets from the other rooms will also be considered. The supply of water to the different sanitation rooms should be considered to avoid cases of lack of water.

Other than patient’s rooms, the health facility will also hold an administration block which will have offices for the different departments. Separate from the wards and receiving rooms, the administration department will hold offices where different issues can be resolved. The offices should however be easily accessed and close to the patients’ wards. This will make it easy for a doctor to reach a patient in need. Additionally, having the offices close by will make it easier for the doctors to do their routine checks on their patients. The offices should be spacious and comfortable. They should also be fitted with ventilators and proper lighting. This rooms will hold different equipment like computers and machines.

References

Pérez-Gosende, P., Mula, J., & Díaz-Madroñero, M. (2021). Facility layout planning. An extended literature review. International Journal of Production Research, 59(12), 3777-3816.