Designing Health Care Facilities for Optimal IEQ

October 10, 2022

Acoustics are crucial to Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)

When a surgeon is operating or a doctor is delivering important news to a patient, sound control is essential. And in certain areas of hospitals and urgent care centers, the Sound Transmission Class (STC) rating between rooms must be higher to produce quieter results.

For example, in a hospital, the minimum STC rating should be 60 between an operating room and an adjacent MRI scanner room while the STC between a consultation room and an adjacent public space can be 50. Between a hospital patient room and an adjacent corridor (with entrance), the STC can be 35. The Facility Guideline Institute (FGI) provides these recommendations.

Founded in 1998, FGI is an independent, nonprofit organization that develops guidelines for the design and construction of hospitals and other health care facilities. An excellent resource to find assemblies that meet FGI requirements is National Gypsum’s The SoundBook® 2.0

Facility Guideline Institute Recommendations

High-performance acoustics criteria

Design a high-performance hospital by meeting additional acoustical criteria for green rating requirements. Achieve WELL Building Standard sound barriers credits in v1 and v2 by providing adequate noise isolation and improving speech privacy. Implement acoustic comfort strategies to meet specific sound control performance targets for Green Globes’ green building initiative. And achieve LEED indoor environmental quality acoustic performance credits for LEED v4 and v4.1 by addressing issues that include HVAC background noise and reverberation time.

Indoor Air Quality is also key

Another consideration for optimal IEQ in health care facilities is Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). To meet air-quality requirements for these sensitive environments, specify low VOC-emitting building products. Also, choose products with PURPLE paper and SPORGARD® technology to help reduce the possibility of mold and mildew from entering hospital rooms or patient treatment areas. For more information, read our recent insightful blog post, “Indoor Air Quality Solutions for Health Care Facilities."

“The EPA states in their publication, “The Inside Story,” that The Three Pillars to Good Indoor Air are: ventilation, filtration and source control – source control being the most important. That’s why specifying products that are UL GREENGUARD certified is incredibly important. Acute care facilities are designed for people that are among the most vulnerable and specifying products that do not pollute the indoor air is a priority.”

Pat Grotlisch
Construction Design Manager
National Gypsum Company

@NationalGypsum #NationalGypsum #construct

Company: National Gypsum