A key focus in hospitals and healthcare settings is the need to maintain stringent hygiene standards. This includes regular sanitization of touchpoints and hard surfaces within areas with high levels of footfall, but doing so takes time and costs money. In a sector that is already struggling to recruit for all of its vacancies, many hospital administrative boards are considering ways of reducing the workload. One way to drive cost and labour efficiencies in hospitals, doctors' surgeries and care homes is to install automatic doors.
Benefits of Automatic Doors in Hospitals:
1. Improved Hygiene
In healthcare settings, maintaining hygiene standards is of paramount importance and one area where germs can rapidly spread and multiply is on door handles. Being touched by hundreds of individuals on a daily basis, they are an ideal host for bacteria and viruses. Automatic doors eliminate this touchpoint, reducing the spread of infection.
2. Improved Accessibility
Patients with mobility issues can find the prospect of a traditional door very daunting, as they may feel off balance when they need to reach to push or pull a traditional door. This is especially so if they rely on a walker or wheelchair to get about. Automatic doors allow patients to traverse without fear of falling, allowing them their independence and reducing their reliance on staff or family members to facilitate their hospital visits.
Many automatic doors feature sensors that can detect obstructions and prevent the doors from closing on people who may have stopped to catch their breath, or dropped an item of clothing which they may bend down to pick up. This feature can prevent accidental injuries.
3. Reduced Energy Bills
Research into automatic door services reveals that traditional doors are often propped or held open for prolonged periods and this allows heat and air-conditioned air to escape from healthcare settings, wasting energy and negatively affecting the correct operation of the installed ventilation system. Automatic doors can help to reduce the cost of heating and cooling a medical facility as they only open when necessary and close automatically.
4. Quick Access For Emergency Services
Automatic doors are ideally suited to emergency medical facilities such as hospitals where time is of the essence and emergency responders may need to get patients on stretchers or wheelchairs into the facility and treated as quickly as possible. Stopping to push or pull open a traditional door whilst manoeuvring their patient can waste valuable seconds.
Automatic door services
A professional automatic door company will take the time to understand the purpose of the facility into which the automatic door will be installed in order to ensure that the most appropriate door and sensors will be fitted, maximizing the benefits that it will deliver to the facility. They should take measurements and understand the needs of the door users to identify whether an outward opening or a sliding automatic door will be most appropriate.
When selecting an automatic door company to install an automatic door into your medical facility, it is essential to select one with experience in this industry, who can provide a full after-sales service and attend at short notice to repair any faults or malfunctions that may develop over time.