Seven hospital design features in the future

Seven hospital design features in the future

The future will change our lives more than in the twentieth century. Architecture is always facing the future, so new approaches to hospital design should be responsible for these future changes. Along with the wave of cultural, social, economic, technological, and scientific changes in society, the design of medical centers will be different from today. One can imagine 7 features for the future of this type of architecture:


1. Sustainability
The future of hospital design will be patient-centered, which will both help patients' health and have a positive impact on the medical staff. The addition of new treatment technologies and changing treatment patterns will play an important role in changing the design of hospital space. Certainly, the duration of treatment will be shortened with the advancement of knowledge and innovation, which in turn will play a key role in energy consumption and building sustainable construction.


2. Flexibility in performance
Space flexibility is another feature of future design. Given the new treatment needs and the evolution of technology, priority is given to spaces that will be able to be re-modified and adapted to the new function. Such flexibility is the best economic benefit for medical institutions. For example, building multi-purpose treatment rooms that are able to adapt to a variety of technologies, and by creating a structural system that can make a new design possibility with the least necessary reconstruction.


3. Knowledge and technology changes
With the advancement of genetic knowledge and the transformation of the health recovery process, the healing process will be faster. For this reason, the use of smart design will be at the forefront of design. With the development of robotic knowledge and advanced medical research tools, the design of medical space will be driven exponentially by technology and information infrastructure. That's why in hospital design, shaping the technology of medical systems will be more important than ever.


4. Economic optimization
As big economic changes change in the future, hospitals and healthcare systems are increasingly moving toward economic optimization to meet customer demand. Therefore, architects need to enter the planning process more than ever in order to ensure the cost-effectiveness of the design with the greatest degree of flexibility and efficiency by influencing the new conditions.


5. Outpatient treatment
  In the future, hospitals will see an influx of more outpatients. Increasing the capacity of outpatient care should be considered one of the most important challenges of future medical equipment. In this regard, micro-hospitals are gradually increasing. Unlike traditional hospitals, it can be considered a new style of small-scale therapeutic therapy with double effectiveness.

6. Short stature
In the near future, the hospital design approach will shift to short-term residency and community-based care. This will be due to changes in the medical approach and the over-emphasis on psychotherapy considerations to transfer the patient's difficult experience of the treatment environment to the safe outdoor space of the home.

7. Remote medicine
Remote monitoring of patients with wearable devices and telemedicine will become part of the hospital's infrastructure and will reduce in-person visits and hospitalizations. In this case, tracking and better accepting the patient with a powerful transportation system will lead to the creation of a new effective outpatient system.


The final point
The above is just a brief indication of the future of hospital design. Undoubtedly, 21st-century architecture is undergoing a great transition in terms of construction concepts, methods, and technology. As one of the designers in the field of medical space, Espo is trying to present new articles in line with this trend.