Hospital Layout Skill
Hospital layouts require strict infection control zoning, wide corridors for stretcher/wheelchair movement, specialized room requirements (OT sterile zones, MRI shielding, CSSD unidirectional flow), and compliance with NBC and NABH standards. Clearance between zones is 200mm (not 150mm).
REFERENCES TO LOAD
- Always load:
references/room_standards.md— minimum sizes for all hospital zones - Always load:
references/room_adjacency.md— required spatial relationships - Load for OT/CSSD/MRI:
references/special_requirements.md— sterile corridors, RF shielding, unidirectional flow - Load for worked example:
references/example_layout.json— complete hospital ground floor
DOMAIN-SPECIFIC RULES
RULE H1 — Wall thickness and clearance. Hospital wall_thickness = 200mm. Clearance between zones = 200mm.
RULE H2 — Corridor width. ALL corridors MUST be minimum 2400mm wide for stretcher and wheelchair passage.
RULE H3 — OT sterile corridor. Operating theatres MUST be accessed through a separate sterile corridor room:
- Width: 2000mm minimum
- Doors: empty array
[](open passage, no physical doors) - The sterile corridor connects to OT rooms and scrub stations only
RULE H4 — Scrub station rule.
Scrub stations MUST have doors: [] (empty — they are open wet zones with no
physical door). Add a note: "open wet zone, no physical door".
RULE H5 — CSSD dual corridor. NEVER model CSSD as a single room. CSSD requires TWO separate rooms:
- "CSSD Dirty Corridor" — receives contaminated instruments
- "CSSD Clean Corridor" — dispatches sterilized instruments
- These two rooms MUST NOT be adjacent. Place them on opposite sides of the sterilization zone with processing rooms between them.
RULE H6 — MRI quench pipe annotation. MRI rooms MUST include annotation metadata:
- RF shielding: copper Faraday cage required
- Quench pipe: 250mm diameter, routed to exterior above roof level
- 5-gauss line: extends ~3m from magnet center — no ferromagnetic objects within
RULE H7 — Clean/dirty utility separation. Clean utility and dirty utility rooms MUST be on OPPOSITE sides of the nursing station. NEVER place them adjacent to each other. This prevents cross-contamination.
RULE H8 — ICU security. ICU MUST have controlled access — a single entry point with a security door. Double-leaf doors minimum 1500mm for gurney access.
RULE H9 — Emergency room access. Emergency room MUST be accessible from BOTH the main entrance AND a separate ambulance entry point. It needs at least 2 doors on different walls.
RULE H10 — Patient flow. Reception → Waiting Area → OPD/Consultation. This flow MUST be linear — patients should not need to backtrack through clinical areas.
UNKNOWN ROOM HANDLING
If the user requests a medical space not in room_standards (e.g., "dialysis unit", "PET-CT room"), estimate using domain knowledge:
- Dialysis unit: similar to ward (6000×6000)
- PET-CT: similar to X-ray room (4000×5000) with additional shielding note
- Set
estimated: true, add toflagged_estimated_rooms
CODE COMPLIANCE REFERENCES
FGI Guidelines (Facility Guidelines Institute):
- Operating Room: min 37m² (400 SF) clear floor area, excluding fixed cabinets
- ICU bed bay: min 11.1m² (120 SF) clear floor area per patient
- Pre-op/PACU bay: min 7.4m² (80 SF) per patient
- Corridor width: 2440mm (8ft) for patient transport corridors
- Staff-only corridors: 1830mm (6ft) minimum
NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals - India):
- OT: minimum 6m × 6m clear area with laminar flow zone
- ICU: minimum 12m² per bed with 1.5m between bed centers
- Nursing station: within 9m of farthest patient bed
- Clean/dirty utility: separate rooms on opposite sides of nursing station
Infection Control Zoning:
- Pressure hierarchy: OT (positive) > Corridors (neutral) > Dirty utility (negative)
- Surgical suite: progressive zones — unrestricted → semi-restricted → restricted
- No direct connection between unrestricted and restricted zones
IBC — Healthcare (I-2):
- Occupant load factor: 240 gross SF per person (hospital)
- Max travel distance: 150ft (46m) sprinklered I-2 occupancy
- Smoke compartments: max 2,090m² (22,500 SF) per compartment
- Defend-in-place strategy: patients cannot self-evacuate
ADA/ANSI A117.1 — Healthcare:
- All patient corridors: 2440mm min for stretcher + wheelchair passing
- Patient toilet rooms: 1525mm (60") turning circle
- Accessible exam rooms: min 10% of each type
- Gurney-accessible doors: 1067mm (42") minimum
LAYOUT PRINCIPLES
- Reception and waiting area at the main entrance
- OPD consultation rooms near waiting area for patient flow
- Emergency room accessible from main entrance AND ambulance entry
- ICU near operation theatre and nursing station, within 46m travel distance
- Pharmacy near OPD and waiting area for convenience
- Diagnostic lab and X-ray near OPD
- Admin office away from patient areas
- Restrooms at regular intervals, one set per patient zone
- Wet zones (restrooms, labs) clustered for plumbing efficiency
- Smoke compartments: max 2,090m² per fire zone
- Clean utility and dirty utility on OPPOSITE sides of nursing station
- Pressure zones: OT positive, corridors neutral, dirty utility negative