Flows and air quality inside an emergency hospital care: project requirements and recommendations in a post-pandemic scenario

• Grant number: 21/04063-3
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): December 01, 2021
• Effective date (End): July 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Architecture and Urbanism Technology
• Principal researcher: Sheila Walbe Ornstein
• Grantee: Vitória Sanches Lemes Soares
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present research project aims to contribute to the quality of buildings destined to the provision of health services, based on the evaluation of the building in use performance. A health care establishment must support complex activities, meeting the requirements of health, safety in use, environmental comfort and accessibility, supporting the activities of health professionals and offering an environment that contributes to the recovery of the patient. The urgent and emergency care units or emergency services, as they operate full-time and, generally, with open doors, are examples of environments that are often overcrowded. Outbreaks of contamination, such as that caused by the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, corroborate the importance of evaluating the building in use, verifying its adequacy to the performance requirements, identifying the positive points, under the environmental perspective, and the need for adjustments. Aspects such as organization of flows and air quality in indoor environments help to reduce contamination, in addition to contributing to user's satisfaction. In this context, the objective is to assess the conditions of indoor air quality and the flow of users, materials (clean, dirty, trash, food and medicines), corpses and equipments at the urgent and emergency care unit of the University Hospital facility of USP, through methods and techniques of Post-Occupancy Evaluation and Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation. It is expected, based on the results obtained, to develop recommendations for the case study and for future projects, which will increase the speed of service and minimize the risks of contamination, consisting of a subsidy for the development of architectural projects with a view to improving the environmental quality of urgent and emergency care units. (AU)