Watch This: Changing Entertainment Tech Has Affected Dialysis Design
Designing dialysis centers through the years has changed thanks to advancement of entertainment technology. What does this imply for architects of healthcare design?
SPACE
Richard Lasam
2/12/20253 min read
As an intern in 2008, one of my first projects (which did not involve being on a roof of a 3-storey building to measure it) was a real eye-opener on the realities of working in the architecture field: besides the daredevil stunts, the long hours on the road, and the endless meetings of pre- and post-data collection at a site, one must come up not only with creative solutions, but also forward-thinking ones.
At that time, one of the associates brought me along to the province of Nueva Ecija to inspect the location of a dialysis center, which was the project. The hospital, Nueva Ecija Good Samaritan General Hospital (now GoodSam Medical Center) is in the City of Cabanatuan, a good 4 hours away from Manila.
Dialysis center
As defined in the glossary of the healthcare site Definitive Healthcare, a dialysis center “is a hospital-based or independent unit approved and licensed to provide outpatient dialysis services. Dialysis is a lifesaving treatment for those with chronic kidney failure and takes over for the kidneys as it cleanses the blood.”
In general, most healthcare providers opt to build dialysis centers due to the high demand for its services to keep more patients healthy. This means that patients and their families spend a significant amount of time in the dialysis center waiting for the procedure to finish. An average session takes anywhere from 2-4 hours at a time, done about several times a week depending on the severity of the patient's ailments.
Changing technology
When I started designing these facilities in the late 2000s up to the early 2010s, mounted television screens for the waiting areas and the treatment areas (along with racks for magazines and other written materials) were the standard amenities to help people pass the time. The architect’s design had to ensure that each treatment chair had a proper viewing angle so that all the visitors and patients of the center could see the television screen.
Fast forward to the 2020s when I designed the dialysis center of Tanchuling General Hospital as part of the master plan. The most significant change to the design happened—smart phones, coupled with WIFI and 4G, have made the TV screen optional. While the TVs are still around, they now generally show information and commercials, not cable TV or entertainment channels. The standard now is to provide free WIFI access to patients and visitors so they can watch and read what they want using their own devices. Nowadays, most waiting rooms and treatment areas have become quieter, the blare of TV screens has minimized with the prevalence of modern communication devices. And this is only within a span of a decade!
Forward-thinking design
What other changes will happen in the next five years? Signs of the next things are apparent with the gradual introduction of 5G systems and what is known as the Internet of Things or Smart Building Integrations; i.e., the connection of all devices to the Internet to better integrate and optimize the functionality of structures.
It’s amazing how fast technology can transform so quickly something that seemed to me a fixture to designing spaces, but as the adage goes, the only constant in life is change. This means that as planners of spaces, architects must be forward thinkers, creating designs that allow for future changes, making buildings viable and relevant many decades hence.