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The Design of an Accident and Emergency Department: Ideas.
I know the majority of people here are Fire Fighters and Paramedics, but I'm sure you all have some ideas to make the 'perfect Emergency Department', from the amount of bays or cubicles, ambulance off-loading areas to colours and sizes. Everything!
All ideas, no matter how large, small, absurd, impossible...
I have the whole summer (until the end of July) to plan and complete my final piece.
Thanks guys,
Will
Tags: Ambulance, Design, Emergency, Medical
Views: 395
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by dr-exmedic on -
1. Enough computers.
2. Working areas close to the rooms, so you don't have to walk as much.
3. Any number of rooms > 15 should probably be split up into "pods."
4. The major resus rooms need to be big (7-8 meters on a side), and the minor rooms should be bigger than the ones in our ED--perhaps 4x5m.
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Permalink Reply by Neil White on -
I was wondering for a minute what new department was being built in Edinburgh, bearing in mind that they've only recently (ok 2003 but that's recent for us) updated the royal infirmary to its third reincarnation. There are still ER's in original Victorian buildings Leicester royal and derby royal until its move. Then I realised the OP is referring to a school project.
We went through this phase of updating and extending which was simply not working and now mainly through private finance hospitals are being built on the outskirts of towns and cities from scratch. One local site is directly under the landing flight path of an international airport... Handy the pilot can just crash straight into the trauma bay.
Us Brits love time and motion and patient journey when designing the layout to hospitals. Will you should look at Derby Royal as an example of this when designing your department. Corridors and patient bays are set out in a journey like fashion and patients flow through from the entrance to the exit.
Minors and majors need to be separate areas, and minors should include GP facilities. Ambulance bays are important, bear in mind the practicalities of reversing an ambulance into a space, whilst diagonal bays look cool on 3D CAD drawings they are a bugger to reverse a truck into. Ambulances should follow a similar journey to other patients, linen cupboards for crews ect. Need to factor in that the hospital needs to clear every ambulance within 20 minutes so complicated structures and too few beds will lead to holdups
Resus areas need to have their own X-ray and CT facilities, observation wards where patients can wait for test results rather than being admitted 12hour trop-t is a common use of these wards.
Separate ER's for adults and children is now mandatory so any new design would require a duplicate of all resources but child friendly.
Confidential working areas rather than public areas where patients are discussed by staff for all to hear. The nurses and docs will thank you for a decent rest room of a good size. Use of modern technology for systems, iPads instead of computers coded or fingerprint lock instead of keys.
The NHS branding website has details on signage and colours. A study was done to find which colours affected mood and as such all areas are painted with these colours. Certain fonts and sizes are used with a capital letter and the lowercase for the sign Emergency, Intensive rather than all capitals to do with the minds ability to look at the shape of letters and form the word rather than reading it in detail. Road signs are an example of this. The mind decides the word from the first letter and context rather than reading the full word in detail.
Wow just realised I am writing a report myself whoops....thank god for turnitin :D
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Permalink Reply by Will on -
Both are great replies, so thanks. @Neil, you've given me a lot to think about, most of which I'd never have thought of. I've taken note and I'll have a look at the Derby Royal designs :) We have a separate hospital, The Royal Hospital for Sick Children with its own specialist A&E, so I'm going to focus on an adult based facility. Thanks again.
I'd still love to have more ideas from people... I didn't realize how hard this was going to be :/
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Permalink Reply by James Hibbard on -
I haven't been in working in the ER over here for very long but I do know that the number of rooms needs to match your ability to staff them. Staffing makes all the difference. I don't know if you have any control over that since I don't know the system to building an ER but I do know that staffing is the biggest issue I have seen so far. :)
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Permalink Reply by Jon Lieblein on -
Keep the public and ambulance entrances as separate as possible. Especially separate parking and driveways. We have issues with people coming to the entrance in personal vehicles and blocking ambulance spaces. If you have control over the layout outside, make sure the ground is as level as possible, and make sure there is room for ambulances to move, even when all parking spaces are full
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Permalink Reply by Will on
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Thanks.. I have complete say over everything where nothing is too big or small, no ideas are bad ones. Its a project so there are no money issues, staffing issues or space issues. All ideas people have given are great, and I'll very likelly use most of them. The idea of minors and majors / self arrival and ambulance arrival is a great one, and one I've already started to draw up.
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Permalink Reply by Will on
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I was going to design an Accident and Emergency Department in the UK. Now, I've changed my mind and have decided to do a redesign of the Field Hospital in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan.
Most of you will know of the Field Hospital in British run Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. In the last few
years it has changed and become the most advanced medical facility in Afghanistan. Teams from the US, Denmark, UK and so on live in Camp Bastion and use and work the facility.
It is as I said, extremely modern and has very high quality care, but things can always be made better, so that's what I'm going to try to do. Make it bigger, and better.
The great ideas and tips I've received above are still great, and I'm going to use most of them in my NEW idea.
Will
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Permalink Reply by dr-exmedic on
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Well, then, you'll probably need to add a few things that weren't in the original plan. :) Security areas, more generators, and the like. Take out a few things, too: fewer windows.
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