Sliding doors support multiple goals

Part of the University of Kentucky HealthCare patient care enterprise, the Albert B. Chandler Hospital in Lexington, Ky., offers 549 acute care beds and 100 intensive care beds. The hospital’s 9,000 employees provide care for more than 45,000 patients annually. The hospital leverages the strengths of multiple specialty experts to provide a high level of complex care.

The medical and cardiovascular intensive care units (ICUs) inside the Albert B. Chandler Hospital were once spread across multiple floors. However, these ICUs were recently consolidated into a single location on the 12th floor of the Pavilion A tower.

This reconfiguration simplifies access and maximizes the level of care the medical staff can provide. But the new ICU achieves more than just consolidating intensive care services into one location. It also features modifications driven by patient and staff experience at various ICUs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The work rooms and nurse respite rooms are now located in areas where multiple activities take place. On the one hand, this supports collaboration between teams. On the other, it has the potential to create distractions when medical providers need to concentrate.

One way that GBBN, the project’s architecture firm, realized multiple design goals was through the use of commercial sliding doors in work rooms, consult rooms and nurse respite rooms, which save space and contribute to visual connection and acoustic isolation. To that end, the hospital installed 25 ExamSlide bi-parting sliding door systems, manufactured by AD Systems in Everett, Wash. The project was completed in May 2023, and the floor was up and running by early 2024.

Despite modifications to the original plans, flexibility remained a guiding principle. The designers at GBBN expanded the floor’s main corridors to provide space for mobile equipment. Stephanie Shroyer, associate principal and interior designer at GBBN, explains, “We asked how we can make the equipment the staff uses every day movable and changeable.”

GBBN planned two nurse respite rooms, four larger spaces for smaller groups of staff to rest, and two additional shared consult and recharge rooms.

These spaces are fitted with AD Systems’ commercial sliding doors, which support efforts for space efficiency and sound attenuation.

Acoustically isolated recharge rooms help nurses decompress and rest during shifts. This helps medical staff stay alert and focused throughout the day or night.

Additionally, the sliding doors to the work rooms were specified with card readers wired to magnetic locks to provide security and privacy to the floor.

The sliding doors used for this project limit sound transfer. They also provide these spaces with Noise Isolation Class ratings of up to 39, which supports acoustic isolation to limit distractions. Shroyer explains, “Sound attenuation is an important detail. Being able to close the doors and limit distractions is essential for an ICU.”

The acoustic performance of AD Systems’ sliding doors supports other aspects of the floor’s design as well. Because the doors can significantly reduce sound transfer, they help the ICU achieve compliance with HIPAA.

“With this project, we were aiming to learn from our clients’ latest pandemic experiences,” says Matt Nett, a GBBN associate. “We wanted to maximize programming opportunities and flexibility in this space.”

Ashley A. Montgomery-Yates, M.D., FCCM, senior vice chair of medicine and director at the University of Kentucky’s ICU recovery clinic, adds, “Creating a sound barrier to protect the health care providers as they communicated patient information was incredibly important for this project. But we also discovered that our staff and providers wanted the ICU space to feel more open and to have visible lines of sight to other spaces within the unit. These doors met both the visual and acoustic goals and have been a great addition to the unit.”