Reshaping Patient Approach to health facilities throughout and beyond Pandemics: Redesigning entrances and waiting areas

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Msc student at Architectural Engineering Department, Faculty of engineering, Alexandria University

2 Lecturer at Architectural Engineering Department, Faculty of engineering, Alexandria University

3 Lecturer at Critical Care Department, Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University

Abstract

One of the questions that has emerged over the last few months is how to create safe healthcare environments that function for the community as much as they do for medicine. The current COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of health services and has also shed on how underprepared people have been to encounter any pandemics and revealed the malfunctions in the design of entrances and waiting areas in health facilities during a pandemic. Entrances and waiting areas in hospitals always witnesses overcrowding and considered as possible spot of infection for patients with other diseases. The aim of the paper is to identify how redesigning hospital entrances, reception and waiting areas can be made safer from an architectural design perspective and highlighting the architect’s role in combating the pandemic. Hospitals simply have tried to impose restrictions on patients and emphasizes on social distancing, but their methods were not successful enough therefore, there must be an architectural interference. The objectives include to examine and evolution the medical architecture situation and the relation between infectious diseases and architectural space (such as entrance and waiting area) and suggest a design approach that enhances infection control using new technologies and latest innovations. Moreover, the proposed ideas can be implemented in existing health facilities which will increase their efficiency and their preparation for pandemics.

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