Medical Construction & Design (MCD) is the industry's leading source for news and information and reaches all disciplines involved in the healthcare construction and design process.
Issue link: https://mcdmag.epubxp.com/i/509247
Esebene/Dollar Photo Club Curious on the latest trends and challenges with to- day's healthcare restrooms, MCD staf recently "hit the streets" for answers. Conversations centered on common themes such as right sizing for patient safety and design trends. But before opening the door to look inside to- day's trends, let's start on the outside — beginning with before the bathrooms are assembled — and take a look at one trend continuing to grow in popu- larity: prefabrication. It has especially increased with regard to items such as bathroom pods on large hospital projects. Joshua Rhodes, senior project manager at JE Dunn Construction, says there is an undeniable ben- efi t to utilizing modular/prefabricated elements on the project. But it's not without its challenges. "In the healthcare sector, we are seeing that prefabricated headwalls and bathroom pods can be more expensive to construct but, the savings in schedule, clash detection, ef ciencies, safety and quality more than make up for the upfront expense of construction," Rhodes said. Now let's step inside today's restrooms. In gen- eral, it seems many professionals are facing the same challenges when approaching a healthcare restroom project. Jennifer Aliber, AIA, FACHA, principal at Shepley Bulfi nch, said there are three main issues most clients try to address and the dif culty is that some appear to be mutually exclusive: > Designing for bariatric patients: This requires larger bathrooms and ease of using patient lifts and nursing support. > Designing for staf safety: Installing lifts and/or making it easier to use mobile lifts for the non-bar- iatric (but increasingly heavy) patient population. > Determining when full patient bathrooms (showers) are needed. With ongoing pressure to reduce length of stay and treating Observation Status patients (who do not require a patient room and may share a toilet and shower with a relatively large number of other patients) and with the belief that many patients in the hospital will be getting sicker, how many and what types of showers will be required? Needing a lift When it comes to handling those needing assistance, patient lifts came up as a topic. "Many weak and/or bariatric patients and skilled nursing/nursing home residents require lifts to assist them on and of the toilets (with clinical staf assistance, of course)," said Constance Nestor, FACHE, Lean, EDAC, MArch, assistant vice presi- dent of facilities and support services at Presence Mercy Medical Center. "The lifts are on wheels and look something like large plastic tricycles. Recently, the lifts are becoming larger and larger (length and width dimensions)." A solution to that challenge? "The toilets must be designed with plenty of room on both sides and at the foot of the commode or the lifts won't fi t in the rooms. Thus, the toilet rooms must be even larger than ADA," Nestor added. And speaking of ADA, Aliber mentioned addi- tional obstacles. "ADA and bariatric requirements are dif erent — and sometimes in confl ict — regarding the location of the patient toilet to the sidewall," she said. "This eliminates the possibility of a single type of bath- room design, which is often desirable for standard- ization and fl exibility of use." Recent published research is covered in "An Investigation of Noncompliant Toilet Room Designs for Assisted Toileting," by Jon Sanford, MArch, and Sheila J. Bosch, Ph.D. (HERD Journal). The conclusion of the research states: "Although caregivers were observed to safely transfer residents to and from the toilet for all confi gurations tested, regulations regarding accessibility of patient bath- rooms should acknowledge the perceived benefi ts of increasing the distance from the sidewall to the centerline of the toilet to as much as 30 inches and allowing two fold-down grab bars instead of the required sidewall and backwall grab bars." Learn more at her.sagepub.com. Consideration of the placement of patient toilets is also under the microscope. David M. Derr, AIA, principal at Shepley Bulfi nch, said some are A snapshot of trends, challenges with healthcare restrooms Restroom Roundup Spotlight healthcare restrooms BY MICHELLE TENNIS 20 Medical Construction & Design | M AY/ J U N E 2015 | MCDM AG.COM