MEDICAL SCIENCES
EMERGENCY AND DISASTER PREPAREDNESS Significant drivers affecting emergency and hospital design
Health Systems across the globe are challenged with the issues associated with pandemic events, including such as SARS, and the recent COVID-19. HKS has been at the forefront of emergency preparedness. The Macau Island Hospital and Changi General Hospital are being designed with several key elements that support the objectives for meeting emergency and disaster preparedness initiatives. Brinda Sengupta, Associate, HKS, Inc. Angela Lee, Managing Director, HKS Asia Pacific
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he current outbreak of COVID-19 has given all countries a jolt and made them think about their healthcare facilities in a new light. Most countries are struggling with a lack of isolation wards and adequate decontamination facilities. It is the need of the hour for health professionals, operators, government departments to implement disaster preparedness within existing and new hospitals. While healthcare policy, governance, and operations will play a big role in planning and management, healthcare design professionals have a significant task of leading a radical shift in the design of hospitals. Here we outline a few design strategies for hospital design to address disaster preparedness. 1. Allow compartmentalisation for isolation: For Macau Island Hospital, the emergency department
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A SI A N H O S P I T A L & H EA LT HCA R E M A N AGE M E N T
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(ED) was designed in a way so as to allow for a portion of the ED to be isolated for a mass casualty or contagious outbreak, while at the same time allowing for the main ED to remain operational. The emergency department was designed to operate under normal circumstances with six key zones including a fever clinic, multiple floors with 23-hour emergency observation, level 1 trauma / resuscitation rooms, level 2 and 3 emergency room beds, level 4 and 5 fast track/triage area and dedicated computerised tomography (CT) and radiology imaging services. 2. Remodel existing emergency departments to be pandemic ready The remodelling the of emergency
department at Changi Hospital is still on going with the participation of EP team at an early stage. The workflow of the pandemic is introduced and
