Environmental Design Strategies to Decrease the Risk of Nosocomial Infection in Medical Buildings Using a Hybrid MCDM...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Design
• Infection Control
• Public Health

Background:

• Nosocomial infection (NI) prevention is increasingly complex, exacerbated by an aging population and rising healthcare costs.
• Existing research lacks a comprehensive framework to evaluate medical building spatial design for NI control.
• The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to assess and improve healthcare environments to inhibit disease spread.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish key design elements for medical building environments to prevent NI.
• To construct and validate an evaluation framework for assessing the infection-control performance of healthcare spatial design.
• To develop a systematic strategy for transforming existing medical facilities to reduce NI risk.

Main Methods:

• Exploratory factor analysis to construct the evaluation framework.
• Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory-based analytical network process (DEMATEL-ANP) to prioritize criteria.
• Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) for performance evaluation of real cases.

Main Results:

• A systematic framework for hospital decision-makers to evaluate spatial environments for NI prevention.
• Identification of key design elements and their influence relationships within medical building environments.
• Performance evaluation of real hospital cases demonstrating the framework's utility in identifying improvement areas.

Conclusions:

• The developed framework provides a practical tool for assessing and improving healthcare facility design against NI.
• The study offers a data-driven approach to prioritize environmental modifications, optimizing resource allocation for infection control.
• The findings support evidence-based design strategies to enhance the resilience of medical buildings against infectious disease outbreaks.