CRITERIA TO EVALUATE ENERGY SAVING AND PRODUCTION IN HOSPITALS: "NURSING UNITS"

Abstract

In recent years technology plays a crucial role in the healthcare field. It is responsible for developing the therapeutic system and raises its efficiency to provide better treatment and services to patients but on the expense of consuming a lot of energy. Energy saving receives nowadays a great priority. Hospital buildings consume between 4 and 6 percent of energy consumption in the construction sector, And the fact that the operating costs of these buildings represent 25 to 60% of public health expenditure. Hospitals are responsible for high energy demand due to the advance in technological application and due to their continuous operation. Moreover energy can affect the therapeutic process as sometimes power outages may lead to the loss of lives. Hence hospitals are considered one of the main building types with a great potential to apply measures of energy saving and production. Hospitals face an array of challenging design requirements regarding energy which make it difficult for designers to evaluate their designs in response to energy. This research aims to establish the main criteria for energy saving and production and apply and evaluate them for a proposed design of nursing unit as nursing units compromise a big sector in hospital composition.