Architect and Builder February/March 2019 | Page 10

High Performance
Smart Hospitals in Africa
By Laura Swanepoel
Head of Healthcare,
Building Services, WSP in Africa
T
he next generation of healthcare buildings will be
very different from the hospitals, clinics and general
practitioner (GP) surgeries we are familiar with today.
A revolution in building design is already underway,
which has largely been prompted by an acceleration
of technological innovation, changing population demographics,
shifts in expectations of how healthcare should be provided and
environmental considerations.
In the pursuit of a prosperous future of inclusive and sustainable
growth, where all African people have a high standard of living,
quality of life, sound health and well-being, learning from global
trends and adapting these to suit African conditions may be the
key to building successful networks of healthcare infrastructure
and medical facilities across the continent.
Designing for flexibility and future adaptability
A hospital commonly takes 10-years from inception to delivery,
and has an average 60-year lifespan. To remain effective through
as many as three generations of change, a future ready hospital
is therefore one that is technologically advanced, resilient and –
above all – flexible and adaptable to changing healthcare needs.
For instance, a new hospital will need to respond to the rapidly
rising trend towards prevention and wellness, as opposed to solely
providing treatment once conditions arise. Thus, we are likely
to see more adoption of the ‘healthcare campus’ approach in
major African cities and urban nodes aimed at keeping people
well in the first place. This approach will likely reduce the need to
house outpatient provision while in-patients will spend less time
in hospitals, so that future hospitals may become smaller. As the
focus of services shifts from reactively curing illness and disease,
to proactively promoting health and fitness, African hospitals will
have to become more adaptable.
There are ways to build in the flexibility and adaptability required
to deal with changing healthcare needs. For instance, modular
construction systems can allow walls to be taken out and spaces
repurposed at far greater ease and lower costs. This approach
means that when the requirement for large outpatient treatment
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areas declines, rooms can be converted or replaced quickly with
other facilities, such as extra care housing for people who may
benefit from being close to healthcare services. Alternatively,
these spaces could be converted into technological hubs for
telemedicine as technology continues to develop.
Hospitals will certainly continue to treat the most complex
cases, and provide for the most vulnerable patients. Facilities will
need to be based on robust, reliable and resilient infrastructure that
can accommodate the most technologically advanced procedures.
We expect to see core clinical services, such as surgical suites,
becoming more centralised. Additionally, there is scope for new
‘hybrid operating theatres’ - where both surgery and diagnostics
can be carried out – to be constructed from the outset of a
hospital’s development, with the space to accommodate robotic
assistants, augmented reality devices and radiology equipment
that monitors the patient during procedures.
Smart and connected hospitals
Technological advances and the digitalisation of the healthcare
industry are changing hospital design and planning. Healthcare
industries are already being disrupted by widespread adoption
of digital technologies including, increased connectivity, cloud
computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and analytics
driven insights, collaboration tools and continued advancements
in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). And, increasingly,
hospitals of the future will rely on smart systems that automate
procedures and administration to improve overall patient care
and staff experience.
With rising adoption of the ‘healthcare campus’ approach,
while retaining all core and critical clinical services, we will also
see hospitals making increasing use of technology to deliver
outpatient services straight to the patient’s home. These services
will be supported by networks of decentralised, community-based
day clinics, to provide hands on nursing care and social support,
as needed.
The new breed of smart and connected hospitals will
have super-fast communications technology embedded, with
Co-working Trend