For several years, I have written about the hurricane hardening of our medical facilities; walls, windows, doors, louvers, etc. Sustainable design standards, new FEMA Florida standards, and infrastructure protection are all part of the analysis and protection requirements. Can you imagine if in the fall of 2020, South Florida was hit with a major hurricane during a peak COVID capacity bed count in our hospitals – were our systems and supply chains protected enough to provide the capacity of all items necessary to provide continuing and uninterrupted medical service to those in critical need?

 

A hospital’s ability to provide critical service during a crisis is limited to the weakest link in the protection chain.

 

Over the past several years, we have seen the planning and commencement of construction on new energy plants at hospitals. These new buildings provide the power the hospitals desperately need, the redundancy necessary for safety, and the cooling towers (protected) to provide the cooling redundancy necessary in hospitals.

 

As hospital importance in the pandemic has been front page news for the past year, there might be grant monies available in the new stimulus package passed by the government to assist hospitals in improving their plants in infrastructure.

 

Hospitals must be prepared if this pandemic turns into an endemic – something that’s with us for years in the future with flare ups we must be prepared to treat.

 

We have learned other valuable lessons during 2020 that warrant a second look and consideration as we protect our facilities for use in an emergency.

 

The COVID pandemic highlighted the disparities in capacity and in access to care. Partners in the private industry added capacity for testing and providing vaccines to the public. As we harden our core hospital buildings, we also need to look at those buildings within our community that different socioeconomic groups rely on as their source of healthcare. Medical systems must serve the most vulnerable during times of need.

 

As we do our planning, we are not only planning for facilities to operate without interruption when large scale emergency events occur. Design professionals realize that codes are reactive in nature – so it is important to be proactive by reviewing all potential disrupters including those which are environmental in nature. Simultaneously, we must plan for flexibility of our buildings – to be able to respond to critical needs at inopportune times.