Modular For Health And Clinical Settings
Health and allied health projects demand tolerance, servicing density and infection control that a controlled factory environment handles better than a live site, and they frequently sit on sites that cannot be shut down.
Can modular construction be used for health and clinical facilities?
Yes, and the room types that repeat suit it particularly well: consulting rooms, treatment rooms, allied health suites and support spaces. The advantages are the tolerances a factory holds, the services density that can be installed and tested before delivery, and a programme that keeps most of the work away from an operating facility.
Health projects have three characteristics that make factory delivery a strong fit, and one that makes it demanding.
They repeat. A consulting room, a treatment room or an allied health suite is a defined room type built many times, and repetition is where factory delivery is strongest.
They are services dense. A clinical room carries more electrical, data, medical gas in some cases, and mechanical servicing per square metre than any residential space.
They sit on sites that cannot stop. An operating clinic, a hospital campus or a shared medical centre cannot absorb months of site activity.
The demanding part is compliance, because the requirements are stricter and more specific than residential.
Why the tolerances matter more here
Clinical fit-out is unforgiving.
Equipment with fixed mounting dimensions. Imaging and treatment equipment with structural and alignment requirements. Joinery and benching that has to meet a cleanable junction standard. Door openings sized for beds and trolleys rather than people.
A factory assembly line holds tighter tolerances than site construction, measured and recorded rather than estimated, which is the subject of [factory quality control and tolerances](/blog/factory-quality-control-and-tolerances). In a space where equipment has to fit a fixed dimension, that is the difference between installing and reworking.
Services, installed and tested before it arrives
The density is the point.
Electrical, data, nurse call, mechanical, hydraulic and specialist services all run through the same ceiling and wall zones, and coordinating them is the difficult part of any clinical fit-out.
In a factory that coordination happens in sequence with the junctions accessible, and it is tested before the linings go on. Which means the services arrive commissioned rather than being commissioned in an occupied building. The general mechanism is in [services coordination in modular delivery](/blog/services-coordination-in-modular-delivery).
Infection control and surfaces
A clinical space has specific requirements for cleanable surfaces, coved junctions, sealed penetrations and the absence of dust-collecting detail.
Those are easier to achieve in a controlled environment, because the surfaces are completed before the space is exposed to site conditions, and the sealing is done once rather than being repaired after other trades have worked through it.
The adjacent requirement is ventilation, which in a clinical setting is a designed system rather than a compliance minimum, and it follows the same logic as [ventilation and air quality in a sealed dwelling](/blog/ventilation-and-air-quality-in-a-sealed-dwelling) with tighter parameters.
The classification question
A health or clinical facility sits in a different building classification from residential accommodation, and the classification determines the fire, egress, access and structural requirements that apply.
Which means the classification is established at the outset, because it changes the construction type, the fire separation, the egress provision and the certification pathway. Getting it wrong is not a detail, it is a redesign. The framework is in [NCC classes and special use accommodation](/blog/ncc-classes-special-use-accommodation).
Allied health in a standalone building and a clinical space inside a larger facility are different problems with different answers.
Working on a live campus
This is frequently the deciding factor rather than the cost.
A facility that is operating cannot host extended construction. Noise, dust, traffic, trade access and the loss of parking all affect patients and staff, and some of it is incompatible with clinical activity.
Factory delivery moves the great majority of the work off site. What remains is the groundwork, the connections and the installation, and the installation itself is measured in days rather than months. The installation sequence is described in [what happens on installation day](/blog/what-happens-on-installation-day).
Which turns a disruption measured in quarters into one measured in a week, and on a live campus that is usually the whole business case.
Where it needs care
Specialist equipment with structural, shielding or alignment requirements has to be identified early, because the provision is made in the frame during fabrication. That is the same discipline as structural provision for a ceiling hoist, set out in [ceiling hoists and structural provision](/blog/ceiling-hoists-and-structural-provision).
And the stakeholder group is larger than on a residential project. Clinicians, infection control, facilities, equipment suppliers and the operator all have requirements, and gathering them before documentation is the difference between one design and three.
MADEmodular / MADEbetter.
MADEmodular / MADEbetter.