When cruise ships are being built, the cabins are just slotted in as prefabricated modules – it's faster and easier than building each one from scratch, within the ship. Well, Philadelphia-based EIR Healthcare is taking the same approach to hospital-building, with its MedModular prefab patient rooms.
Being manufactured by real estate development company Admares, each MedModular room is delivered to the construction site 90 percent complete, including all the electrical wiring. The idea is that multiple units can simply be put together Lego-style, in order to get the hospital built quickly.
Among the rooms' features are automatic sliding doors, which should make entry and exit easier, and eliminate the need to touch the doors with one's germy hands. There are also "smart" windows that can electronically transition from transparent to opaque either at the press of a bedside button, or on a programmed day/night schedule that supports patients' circadian rhythms.
Other features include a built-in daybed for visitors, and the use of bacteria-resistant solid surface materials throughout, including a continuous solid-surface floor that doesn't have any seams where bacteria can grow. Additionally, each room has a Luminous SkyCeiling over the bed, which simulates a blue sky and is claimed to "yield meaningful therapeutic benefits for mind and body."
According to EIR Healthcare, the MedModular system should be competitive with traditional construction techniques on a price-per-square-foot basis, and allow hospitals to be completed up to 40 percent sooner.
Source: EIR Healthcare
