Healthcare Design Post COVID-19

The Covid-19 virus has required healthcare facilities to make extraordinary changes to accommodate the influx of patients to their Emergency Departments and ICU units. What do these changes mean for the future of healthcare design, when the virus is under control? FCA’s creative professionals have been working with several healthcare systems – including their clinical teams, support staff, and system administrators – to understand how hospitals will need to adapt to deliver care in the wake of this crisis: what lessons have been learned, and what solutions can be imagined? For example: how can hospitals develop spaces that are flexible and modular, to allow for significant fluctuations in demand? What infrastructural needs, like ventilation and medical gases, and PPE storage, need to be reconsidered for effectiveness? How to ensure new facilities are meeting CDC guidelines? And with revenue shortfalls occurring in the millions of dollars week to week, what interventions will be most effective in a time of significantly reduced construction budgets? In this paper, FCA and our healthcare partners will approach these questions from a position of deep expertise and historical experience, with a keen eye towards the impact that interior design and planning has on patients and staff.