From traditional furniture to furniture intelligence, from furniture intelligence to spatial intelligence, and then to smart office, the furniture industry has gone through multiple stages of evolution. What kind of evolution will furniture undergo in the era of intelligent healthcare with higher requirements for specialization? How will traditional medical spaces restart?

No longer limited to the guidance desk and ward, the past and present of medical and nursing spaces

When it comes to medical space, many people may have some impression of the number of consultation rooms and wards in hospitals/clinics. The so-called medical space is just the placement of medical furniture such as guide tables, desks, and beds in the offices of medical institutions. In the eyes of outsiders, medical and nursing spaces are not much different from home spaces, except that in the selection of furniture, there is slightly more consideration for materials and functionality. Is that really the case?

Before the 1980s, there was indeed no concept of medical space, and furniture production in the medical system was basically the same as ordinary furniture. It was not until the 1990s, when China's medical furniture industry truly emerged, that medical space gradually emerged. Due to the limited design layout of medical buildings, most medical buildings in the last century underwent several renovations, resulting in a scattered layout of single buildings with circuitous patient routes and inconvenient internal functional connections. As a result, the development of medical space was very limited.

After entering 2020, there have been significant changes in the departments and area allocation of newly built modern hospitals.

In the old "old-fashioned" hospitals, the nursing units in the inpatient department were the majority, accounting for a large proportion of the total building area of the hospital; Now, due to the significant increase in outpatient business volume and the rapid rise in outpatient surgery volume, hospitals are giving more space to outpatient services.

According to statistical data, 70% of surgeries in American community hospitals are performed through outpatient procedures. Due to the increase and change in this proportion, as well as the development of new diagnostic and treatment equipment, the workload of medical technology departments continues to increase. The ratio of outpatient and medical technology department area to inpatient department area gradually increases to 2:1, and medical furniture accounts for up to 45% of indoor area.

On another dimension, with the rise of the smart healthcare industry, medical and elderly care spaces have begun to undertake multiple tasks such as treatment, healthcare, nursing, elderly care, and recuperation, and have been endowed with more connotations.

However, the current reality is that the development and design of medical furniture and medical architecture exist in isolation, making it difficult for both parties to collaborate, and the value of medical and nursing spaces is greatly reduced. At the same time, due to the nascent competition in the industry and the absence of top enterprises, coupled with some companies' lack of emphasis on quality, the concept of medical and elderly care space has not been widely accepted by the entire industry, resulting in uneven product quality.

In this context, traditional medical and elderly care spaces urgently need an upgrade, with medical furniture becoming a key component. How to break away from the traditional concept of functional layout and styling in the past and adapt to the requirements of modern medical management and service systems has become a compulsory course for every player in the medical and elderly care space in the era of smart healthcare.

What kind of medical and nursing space is needed in the era of smart healthcare? As a must answer question in the industry, how should traditional medical care spaces evolve to become what the era of smart healthcare should be like?

1. Customized medical furniture should not only fit the spatial design, but also meet various needs

In the decoration industry, there is the concept of "whole house decoration", which refers to the overall customization of furniture based on the layout of the room to meet the spatial design requirements during decoration.

In medical and nursing spaces, customized "whole house decoration" is also applicable, but in addition to the basic functional and aesthetic design requirements of traditional medical and nursing spaces, it also needs to have the ability to meet various needs.

2. The medical and elderly care space should not only serve patients, but also take into account medical care, highlighting the people-oriented approach

The medical and elderly care space is closely related to the scene of medical treatment and diagnosis in hospitals, so it must show its professionalism to the outside world, so that patients can trust it because of their expertise. At the same time, in the era of smart healthcare, the medical and elderly care space should not only achieve basic functions, but also show a "human touch" side to obtain good psychological feedback and response from users.

It should be noted that in the past, medical and elderly care spaces focused more on patients. Under the core principle of people-oriented, in the era of smart healthcare, medical and elderly care spaces also need to take into account the work experience of medical staff, which can be divided into two aspects.

One is the design and layout of medical furniture, similar to Saint Ao's "San An" medical care space solution, whose convenient functional design should consider both the physiological needs of patients and the usage needs of medical staff:

The second is to create different style characteristics in the atmosphere and environment through reasonable spatial layout, harmonious form and color, and texture design, so as to make the mood of medical workers and patients more comfortable, and create conditions for building a harmonious and beautiful doctor-patient relationship.

3. Personalized smart medical care spaces should also be able to be quickly replicated out of the box

Most of the smart healthcare spaces we see now are personalized and customized. However, it can be foreseen that in the future era of smart healthcare, a large number of traditional healthcare spaces will need to be upgraded, and new types of smart healthcare spaces will grow on a large scale. This requires the design and construction of smart healthcare spaces to keep up with the development speed of the industry, that is, in addition to the ability of personalized customization, they can also be quickly replicated and mass-produced.

This also means that the medical and elderly care space industry not only needs to establish a standard system, but also has upstream production methods for medical furniture

We need to upgrade.

4. From professional institutions to ordinary families, the future path of medical and nursing spaces

Whether it is design and deployment, or production and manufacturing, medical and elderly care spaces need to integrate with more AI technologies in the future era of smart healthcare.

A very easy to imagine scenario is that more and more unmanned services are entering the medical field. How to integrate unmanned devices into the medical and nursing space, and how to make the interaction between doctors and patients and unmanned devices full of "warmth", these issues should all enter the thinking scope of medical and nursing space players.

Another important point that cannot be ignored is that from the perspective of ordinary people's understanding of healthcare, in the past, there was only a need to seek medical treatment when they were sick. Nowadays, people pay more attention to healthy lifestyle behaviors and ways, not only physical health, but also mental health, and disease prevention. This also means that in the future era of smart healthcare, medical and nursing spaces will no longer be limited to specific institutions or will enter our daily lives, ordinary families.

Let's take a look at several existing cases, such as the Dubai Health City that integrates medical treatment, physical examination, treatment, nursing, and recuperation, the Novina Health City in Singapore that blends with the Orchard Road commercial center, and the Tokyo Health Plaza in Japan. These comprehensive healthcare facilities have begun to integrate into people's daily lives.

For example, Tokyo Health Plaza in Japan, in addition to the 305 bed Okubo Hospital, also includes a fitness club, healthcare museum, and some office buildings and shops, giving the impression of a bustling commercial center rather than a medical facility center.

Under this trend, the boundaries between smart health spaces and smart medical care spaces that integrate and coexist with daily life will be greatly expanded, and their intrinsic value will also be reshaped.