Estimated data for refuge area design in buildings of health care facilities

Introduction. When studying fire safety laws and regulations, including foreign ones, one can draw a conclusion that protecting people during evacuation is mainly ensured by dividing the building into fire compartments, specifying geometric properties of escape routes and exits, and by equipping buildings with automated fire prevention systems. However, in order to assess the actual possibility of evacuating people, their number, physical condition, and degree of mobility must be known, as well as the number of patients who will need to be moved on stretchers or in wheel-chairs.

Main (analytical) part. This paper provides schedules for occupancy rates of medical departments in different units of a health care facility, namely, in the internal medicine and inpatient surgical units. Obtained empirical values presented in this publication are part of daily operating process and are included in the workflow: each day head nurses collect data on rates of patient occupancy in medical departments. The total number of processed empirical data was 297,000 values.

Conclusions. The studies that have been carried out demonstrate which geometrical properties must be ensured for refuge areas and that buildings of the inpatient surgical type are the most relevant location where they can be designed. Areas of refuge must be provided for surgery and intensive care departments where people can wait for rescue. Some categories of patients in intensive care units, as well as in the surgical department, are not subject to evacuation, because it is not possible to interrupt surgeries after reaching a certain stage.

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