Health care facilities continue to undergo transformation as service lines and patient populations change. Construction and renovation of facilities provide legal, regulatory, business and ethical responsibilities to design, construct, and maintain a safe environment for patients, their family, staff, and practitioners. The 2010 edition of the Facilities Guidelines Institute (FGI)"Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Health care Facilities" (Guidelines) was adopted by 42 states as well as The Joint Commission for construction guidance or standards. The Joint Commission is an accrediting organization that can provide deemed status for health care facilities receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid payments This document provides guidelines for minimum standards for health care facility design and construction. Included in the updated Guidelines are recommendations for space requirements, accessibility, fire protection, medical gases, lighting, safe patient handling assessments and noise abatement as well as infection prevention practices, among others.
While an infection control risk assessment (ICRA) process has been considered standard practice in health care construction over the past decade in the 2001 and 2006 editions published by the American Institute of Architects, the 2010 Guidelines underscores the need for a multidisciplinary team including Infection Preventionists in the design phase as well as in the mitigation, construction and post construction phases.
