Healthcare facilities face a range of challenges, from the pressure to reduce costs to dealing with pandemics. Designing a hospital or other healthcare facility requires an understanding of these demands and products that meet them. Great healthcare facility design—which includes great doors—makes a difference.
The AspiroTM door from Masonite Architectural can be customized to meet the intense demands of healthcare projects. Here we take a look at the aesthetic and performance benefits of Masonite’s AspiroTM series interior wood doors.
How Should Doors Perform in Healthcare Environments?
An article from Whole Building Design Guide explains how architectural design choices can be important factors for “attracting and retaining the best doctors and nurses, the most successful HMOs and insurance plans, and the most patients.” The author goes on to say, “An aesthetically pleasing facility is a key aspect of the perceived quality of care.” With that in mind, each design choice you make matters to the ultimate success of a healthcare facility.
Meeting construction client demands means limiting construction and design costs, and working on tight schedules, all while delivering a high quality result. You need interior doors that can meet many needs at once.
Doors Tough Enough for Healthcare Facilities
Doors in a hospital or healthcare facility need durability without being too heavy. Picture how people move around a hospital. Staff may walk very quickly, while patients with various ailments may move slowly. People are pushing carts, gurneys and wheelchairs, or carrying things. Nurses and orderlies might open doors by elbowing or kicking them.
To stand up to heavy use in a healthcare setting, an interior door needs:
- Quality construction
- The right core type
- Durable surfaces
You can find many options for all three within the AspiroTM series.
Security Doors That Provide Attractive Openings
In healthcare facilities, people want to see evidence of security to feel safe, but the environment still has to feel welcoming. Features like security cameras and biometric locks enhance security, as do features of the doors themselves.
Attack resistant openings have become more and more in-demand, especially for public spaces. An attack resistant door opening will include:
- A heavy-duty core
- Shooter attack glass
- A metal frame
- High-quality hardware
Masonite Architectural incorporates all of these elements into its highly attractive and customizable AspiroTM doors.
Healthcare Door Features That Contribute to Calm Environments
Healthcare facilities must create a calming effect, both to encourage healing of patients and for the comfort of visitors. As a designer, you contribute to this effect though light, color and acoustics.
Each of these elements comes into play when choosing doors.
- STC-rated doors reduce sound transfer
- Laminate or paint color choices allow doors to fit into the perfect calming palette
- Lite openings contribute to daylighting, which supports healing
AspiroTM doors offer numerous choices in each of these areas.
Hygiene and Interior Doors
Perhaps no element of healthcare facility design matters more than hygiene to reduce the spread of illnesses. Many bacteria and viruses can linger on surfaces, especially those that are used frequently and touched by many people—like interior doors.
These features reduce the chances that healthcare doors will spread germs:
- Laminates allow for smooth, easy-to-clean surfaces
- Clean edges eliminate areas where germs would get trapped
- Automatic doors can reduce the need to touch them entirely
Masonite Architectural offers AspiroTM doors in a wide range of high-pressure decorative laminates (HDPL).
Placement of Doors in Healthcare Facilities
The placement of a door could have implications for the visibility of protected patient information, and therefore HIPAA compliance. Factors that affect visibility and potentially privacy may include:
- Which ways the doors swings and the resulting sight lines
- Whether the door contains lites and the type of glass used
- Whether to place a door in a given opening at all
Masonite Architectural’s interior wood doors come in a broad range of choices, including aesthetic and performance features, making it possible to find all of the doors required for a healthcare project from one source.
Learn More About Masonite Aspiro™ Doors for Healthcare
Take a look at a project that used Masonite Architectural healthcare doors, Clarity Child Guidance Center, and use the DOORSELECTOR™ tool to learn more about options for AspiroTM doors.