Living in today’s fast-pacing world has taught us the importance of continuously improving and advancing. It’s as if providing the best is slowly becoming the bare minimum. It might sound absurd, but many industries, such as healthcare, are working towards making that the standard.
Many healthcare facilities now strive to provide better services to improve patients’ experience. Stakeholders work on proposing hospital construction projects to expand their facilities and adapt technologies to prepare for the future. Since technology has become a prominent factor in treating patients, construction projects aim to adapt.
Planning, researching, and working on a hospital construction project is a rigorous process for stakeholders. The truth is, it can even take years to finish a thorough hospital construction plan. But even though these professionals work day and night for the best project, it’s unavoidable to overlook some details.
Those small details can disrupt patients and health workers once the construction begins. Hence, recognizing those potential causes is a must before project implementation. In this article, let’s discuss six things hospitals often overlook during a construction project.
1. Noise pollution prevention
Noise is an inevitable cause that any construction project brings. Where there’s ongoing construction, then there is noise, too. Construction noise could cause patients to be impatient and unhappy during their stay.
Now, what do we do? First, it’s critical to recognize the areas and departments near the construction area. Then, you should assess how the construction would affect the patients during their treatment stay. If it’s a ward department, do you think your patients will be able to seek treatment peacefully with all the noise?
If your answer is ‘no’, you must relocate the corresponding departments and offices before construction starts. That way, you wouldn’t have to deal with patients’ concerns about construction noise.
2. Designating loading and unloading areas for construction materials
There are instances when the contractor of a hospital project has to unload their materials near the hospital entrance. As a result, patients coming in and out of the hospital premises feel uncomfortable. If a patient allergic to dust or other materials were there, do you think they would be happy?
Sometimes, even though the stakeholders have a designated area for loading and unloading, there are instances where contractors need to unload near the hospital entrance. If that were to happen, make sure to put a notice before proceeding with the unloading.
Include strict unloading areas in your project plan to avoid this from happening. This scenario might seem small. But, it could interrupt and disrupt patients’ experience within the healthcare facility.
3. Daily disinfection and sanitation of hospital premises during the construction project
One thing about a construction project is that it causes tremendous amounts of dust. Of course, we know workers clean hospitals daily. But during a construction project, the hospital might need to clean the hospital more than once daily to maintain its cleanliness.
Most people go to hospitals to seek treatment and care. But if a hospital is dusty, do you think people would love to stay there? Likely, no one would be happy to do so. To prevent people from having a misconception about your hospital, maintaining its cleanliness at all times is a must.
4. Maintaining smooth and easy access to respective offices and departments
If a hospital is to renovate a specific area, certain departments will inevitably be hard to access. That’s why relocating the busiest departments in the hospital should be a priority. Can you imagine how troublesome it would be if the nurse headquarters were in a distant area from the emergency or ICU rooms?
Since most of the departments and offices in a hospital work together, it’s critical to make their access seamless. Health workers shouldn’t travel from the north to the south wing of the hospital just to provide treatment to patients and vice versa.
To cut it short, access to all offices should remain seamless and troublesome despite an ongoing construction project.
5. Compatibility of medical equipment in relocated areas
After a hospital relocates its departments and offices, it might seem like it finally crossed the challenging part of preparing for the construction. However, checking that all medical equipment is compatible in the new area can be a struggle, too.
Can you imagine how disastrous it would be to relocate the emergency room to an area where most of its equipment is not working? If the electrical lines of the temporary location cannot support medical equipment, how critical would it be? When this happens during an emergency, patients’ lives could be in danger.
That’s why ensuring the compatibility of the temporary offices is a must. Don’t just settle for an unused area as your temporary location. It is the hospital’s responsibility to ensure that patients receive the same quality of treatment regardless of the temporary location.
6. Maintaining hospital security during the construction project
Last but not least is maintaining hospital security during the construction project. Since another party, such as the contractors, will be at the hospital premises indefinitely, maintaining hospital security should be a priority.
We don’t mean to think badly about the contractors working within the hospital premises. But since patients will be meddling with the contractors from time to time, maintaining hospital security is critical. With that, the hospital’s security should ensure that the contractors and the workers follow their regulations at all times.
Regulations should include not crossing or using patients’ facilities and doorways to give them peace of mind during their stay.
Recognizing these points will help promote a seamless Hospital construction project.
As you work on your hospital construction plan, I hope you take the time to recognize and analyze these points. Doing so will help you prevent encountering issues that will make patients’ experiences dissatisfying during their stay. Recognizing these points helps promote a seamless hospital construction project despite having regular operations.
About the author:
Bianca Banda is a writer for MTX Contracts U.K., a privately owned construction and engineering company. MTX delivers single-source construction and engineering solutions to the UK’s public and private sectors, consistently promoting innovation and sustainable construction.
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