The Center for Health Design recently released a free report, "Achieving EBD Goals Through Flooring Selection & Design," to give interior designers within the healthcare sector a set of evidence-based criteria to evaluate flooring options for healthcare facilities.
The study, conducted with support from Tandus Flooring, examines the use of various floor coverings through the lens of research findings, industry standards and best practices. The goal is to see how flooring might contribute to performance improvement goals in areas such as reducing slips and falls, reducing noise levels, reducing potential risk for Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) and improving patient satisfaction.
The authors of the report point out they are offering a tool for evaluating flooring, and not supporting any one type of floor covering: “There is no evidence to support the selection of a specific flooring type as the ideal across the healthcare facility … Each product should be analyzed for its individual properties, which can then be evaluated in the context of desired outcomes for a particular healthcare space."
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