Designing restrooms for a healthcare facility may represent the field’s highest degree of difficulty. So many needs are packed into so small a space, and the concerns of safety, accessibility, and infection prevention loom even larger than they do in a standard public restroom, according to an article on the Building Operating Management on the FacilitiesNet website.
The awareness of patient safety leads to the question, “what can we do architecturally?” says Erica Fisher, a medical planner for SmithGroup. Some answers are surfaces that allow easy but thorough cleaning, safe transitions into the shower, and space for a patient and a caregiver.
Even in an inpatient room, “there’s not one design that works for everyone,” Fisher says. ADA rules, for instance, mandate toilets offset 18 inches from the wall, but her practice has found that two feet works better, to give caregivers more room to assist a patient.
Shannon Bambery, a medical planner for AECOM, says that most healthcare facilities do not design every room to be ADA-compliant, but do recognize that a patient might need assistance in every room.
“The big one is how to get in and out of the shower,” Fisher says. Most modern designs for inpatient bathrooms feature no sill at all to the shower area. But since a steep grade would also be a hazard, the slope to the drain is very slight. Bambery says that one solution is a rubber gasket around the shower area, which compresses at the pressure of a foot or a wheel but still confines water. The area outside the shower also needs its own drain.
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