How to create a clean hospital space with a “user-centered” approach
Creating a "user-centered" hospital space is not only an important proposition for the high-quality development of the medical industry, but also the core competitiveness of future hospitals. In this context, the construction of people-centered medical space is gradually being valued by hospital builders and managers.
To be people-oriented and user-centered, the core is to meet the diverse needs of medical staff, patients and logistics personnel. In recent years, Shanghai Tongji Hospital and Foshan Heyou International Hospital, which Midea has cooperated with in building technology, have made varying degrees of exploration in the fields of smart wards and hospital digital management. At the same time, some newly built specialized hospitals are also constantly innovating in applications such as space purification, Internet of Things, and AI based on specific user needs.
Recently, Xi'an Tus Children's Hospital was completed in the core area of the second phase of Xi'an High-tech Zone Software New City. As the first child-friendly concept hospital in the northwest region, its strong medical capabilities and technological innovation in the hospital space scene have attracted attention in the industry since its debut.
Xi'an Tus Children's Hospital is located in the core area of Software New Town in the High-tech Zone, adjacent to the West Third Ring Road across Yanghui Canal and Yunshui 1st Road to the east. The roads are crisscrossing and extending in all directions. It covers an area of 38.075 acres, with a total construction area of 121,270 square meters. It has a planned total of 400 beds and an average construction area of more than 300 square meters per bed. According to Hou Fangdi, the general manager of the hospital: "At the beginning of the hospital's construction, it was based on the positioning of high starting point planning, high-standard design, high-quality construction, high-quality development, and high-level services. It adopted internationally advanced information technology and Internet of Things technology, integrated green hospitals, smart hospitals, Internet+, 5G applications and other innovative technologies, and adopted pneumatic logistics and integrated medical services to provide users with mid-to-high-end medical and health services."
There are many differences between hospital building systems and conventional building systems. Scenarios such as operating rooms, ICUs, MRI rooms, and DR rooms all have special and professional requirements for the space environment.
For example, hospital clean scenes often plan three areas and two channels. In the design and planning, it is necessary to separate the flow of people and logistics, and separate the clean and dirty flows. The special regulatory requirements for space, movement lines, and environment far exceed the requirements of conventional environmental engineering. The number of complex scenarios not only tests the integration capabilities of space solutions. The requirements are sophisticated, the difficulties are many, and the challenges are huge. It is also a test related to the core strength of technology.
Among them, the operating room is the space scene with the most stringent cleanliness requirements. According to the national "Technical Specifications for Construction of Hospital Clean Surgery Departments" GB 50333-2013, clean operating rooms are divided into four levels: the humidity requirements for clean operating rooms are 40%-60% and the temperature is 21℃-25℃. Compared with general hospitals, Tus Hospital's audience focuses on children, so it has more stringent requirements for environmental control. It must not only comply with the large building system, but also comply with the specific design concept of a children's hospital. During the design and operation process, factors such as low user immunity and strong environmental sensitivity must be taken into great consideration.Therefore, the purification degree needs to be extremely rigorous and follow extremely high standards and reliability. For this reason, Xi'an Tus Children's Hospital has demonstrated professional and rigorous space process design and professional integration technology capabilities in corresponding scenarios.
How to create a cleaner space?
In the entire hospital system, the operating room is the most expensive unit.
Operating rooms need to use air cleaning technology to control microbial contamination to varying degrees, filtering nearly a million dust particles per cubic meter of air down to thousands or even hundreds to meet the requirements for air cleanliness in a controlled space environment suitable for various surgeries; and provide appropriate temperature and humidity to create a clean and comfortable operating space environment.
For example, there are 3 to 4 doors outside the entire operating area. Every time medical staff pass through a door, they pass from the contaminated area to the semi-contaminated area and finally enter the clean area. The cleanliness level is upgraded one by one. Articles enter the operating room area through the transfer window. The two sides of the transfer window cannot be opened at the same time to avoid the internal space being polluted by external air.
Take the "sterile operating room" as an example. In operations such as "craniotomy", "thoracotomy" and joint replacement, because the patient's trauma area is large and the patient is in contact with the air, infection problems are more likely to occur than in ordinary operations. This requires layer-by-layer circulation filtration through air purification technology to meet the national standard requirements of the "100-level operating room". In terms of air purification, "100-level" is a more rigorous and strict scenario than "1,000-level" and "10,000-level".
At the same time, the plan's attention to detail is not only reflected in the superb air purification equipment, but also in the details of the combination of indoor space software and hardware.
If you look carefully, you will find that the entire plastic floor of the operating room is connected to the wall, and the corners are designed in an arc shape. The principle is easy to understand and is considered to facilitate actual operation. When cleaning the wall, if it is a right angle, it is easy for dust to remain. If it is an arc, the dust can be easily cleaned when wiped with a rag. More importantly, this design is more convenient for the circulation filtration of air conditioners in the operating room. The clean and filtered air is blown out from the high-efficiency air supply vents set on the ceiling of the operating bed and circulates through the lower return air vents on both sides of the room. The arc design of all wall corners in the room prevents the air flow from being disordered and better ensures the high cleanliness of the surgical space.
From spatial integration to equipment selection, what goes further than solutions is integrated soft decoration services.
In order to truly achieve "user-centeredness", Tus Children's Hospital also has strict requirements in terms of space design. The entire ward is designed to be a soft and concise environment, embellished with light blue and yellow colors. It is simple yet monotonous, professional yet friendly. When you are in it, you can't help but calm down. The public areas are mainly white and wood-colored, with pure white color, creating a bright and quiet atmosphere, creating a sensory open and comfortable healing space for children, emblazoned with user-centered cultural connotation, and won the American AIIDA International Innovation Design Award.