Description

Modern-day patient rooms have to be much more than a place for patients to stay and recuperate. Different clinical symptoms place varying requirements on the design of patient rooms and their fittings. This spinal cord unit shows how the design of the patient rooms incorporates specific technical equipment and helps address the challenges facing paraplegia patients.

The BGU Accident and Emergency Hospital in Frankfurt am Main is not only a supra-regional trauma centre for accidents and emergencies but also a university hospital for the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. The new extension to the intensive care medical centre consists of three buildings, including a ward building to the south, and is reached via the main corridor from the new entrance hall. It links directly to the renovated and restructured treatment building in which the operating theatres are located.

The rectangular building, with its white render façades and ribbon windows interspersed by orange and yellow vent boxes, is the first of the three sections. It contains an intensive care unit with intermediate care areas, general care wards and wards for specific medical conditions, including a spinal cord unit with a total of 72 beds.

As a trauma centre, the BGU Accident and Emergency Hospital treats and cares for patients with paraplegia resulting from an accident or illness. The specialist department for spinal cord injuries can accommodate 17 patients and is located on the second floor. It has nine barrier-free patient rooms, of which five two-bed rooms and one isolation room are wheelchair-accessible. The architects devoted particular attention to these rooms. Their wider structural spans of 5.20 m and large floor areas of almost 31 m² provide sufficient space to arrange beds offset to and opposite each other and to park a wheelchair next to the bed.

The furnishings, design and atmosphere of the rooms are geared towards longer-duration inpatient stays and the degree of injury that patients may have: all furnishings were planned with hygiene and access for people with disabilities. A media panel next to each bed allows patients to control lighting levels, sun shading, to watch or listen to media and to call a nurse. Additional control devices are available for patients with tetraplegia, a form of paralysis below the neck. An overhead lift allows nursing staff to help patients in and out of bed with the help of lifting sheets – for example into a wheelchair or a mobile commode chair. A disinfectant dispenser near the door is incorporated into the fitted furnishings, reminding patients and visitors to disinfect their hands when entering and leaving the room.

Each of the rooms has its own disabled-access bathroom, some of which are specially designed for patients with obesity. The bathrooms are large enough to be accessed with a shower trolley and have an overtoilet-compatible WC as well as – for hygienic reasons – a wall-mounted bedpan washer.

The placement of the beds opposite each other has hygienic advantages while also enabling better communication between patients. A desk, larger cupboard storage, a refrigerator as well as wood-decor flooring contribute to the high quality of the interior. The interplay of lighting and ventilation openings as well as the choice of calming colours, the well-thought-out furnishings and generous room size create a positive atmosphere for long-stay patients.

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Originally published in: Wolfgang Sunder, Julia Moellmann, Oliver Zeise, Lukas Adrian Jurk, The Patient Room, Birkhäuser, 2020.