Handling Your Top Healthcare Construction Safety Concerns

Construction of healthcare facilities presents a host of challenges for contractors. Open 365 days of the year with employees and patients onsite at all times, these facilities require added security measures and minimal disruption to daily operations to protect the safety and well-being of patients, employees and the general public.

Based on research from OSHA and EHS Today these are the top four safety concerns when performing healthcare construction:

Hospitals are 24-hour facilities.

Typically, the dangers of construction sites only put workers at risk. However, when the construction site is a hospital, the 24-hour schedule of staff, patients, incoming and outgoing vehicles, operating rooms and other details come into play. By maintaining regular communication between hospital and construction staff, projects can be completed in a timely manner without compromising the safety of all parties involved.

Patients’ well-being and infection control are top priority—not construction.

Activity on a construction site is never-ending, and maintaining schedule is normally the priority. But when the construction site is a hospital, patient safety takes precedence over progress. By communicating with hospital staff about infection control, logistics and patient safety, high-quality projects can be finished efficiently and safely.

Construction vehicles cannot block ambulance traffic.

Concrete trucks, cranes and other construction vehicles are cumbersome but necessary. Workers should ensure that large equipment and vehicles do not interfere with traffic and be mindful that exits and entrances for ambulances cannot be blocked. When parking and spatial needs are communicated in advance to hospital and construction leadership, they can arrange one particular exit for all construction vehicles to smoothly regulate traffic flow.

Water supply cannot be turned off.

At times during construction, it becomes necessary to turn off a building’s water supply. However, hospital operations requiring water access cannot stop. Therefore, the general contractor and hospital leadership should coordinate this interruption and schedule to have firemen onsite during that time in case of an emergency.

Constant communication and transparency with hospital leadership during the planning and preconstruction phases can put construction on a schedule that accounts for a hospital’s unique challenges. By keeping lines of communication open, construction companies can overcome these challenges and create high-quality, life-saving facilities.

Need assistance on an upcoming healthcare project, contact us.