Minimize Hazards and Maximize Comfort in Health Care Spaces

Behavioral health facilities, like other health care environments, present project teams with several challenges for meeting code requirements, satisfying best-practice recommendations and creating restorative spaces. That said, balancing life safety design and occupant comfort is at the heart of these in-patient centers.

Often, this balance entails optimizing communal and patient rooms for daylight access and reduced sound transfer while also meeting code-driven requirements for fire and life safety. Impact- and fire-rated glazing assemblies remain a key solution for achieving all these goals and more.

As a part of a comprehensive approach to life safety design, these systems allow project teams to create code-compliant interiors that do not compromise open sightlines or occupant wellness.

What does life safety design mean in behavioral health facilities 

Life safety design represents several strategies for protecting occupants from physical harm. In behavioral health spaces, it means designing, first and foremost, to meet code requirements for fire and life safety. This includes ensuring opening protectives along a means of egress system contribute to both exit strategies and shelter-in-place protocols. 

In addition, life safety design in these settings also includes incorporating materials that are impact-resistant. Doing so minimizes harm risks for both patients and providers. Strategically incorporating these materials also helps deter escape to ensure patients can remain in a safe environment to receive necessary care. Further, due to the specialty care given at these centers, increasing visual connection between spaces can also be considered a part of life safety design as it allows providers to safely and unobtrusively monitor patients. 

Today’s impact- and fire-resistance rated glazing meets building code requirements and design goals for optimal sightlines. 

Solve multiple challenges in life safety design simultaneously 

Before 2006, many fire-rated glazing applications used wired glass. While this product meets requirements for fire protection, it is not impact-resistant. In 2006, the International Building Code (IBC) limited its use to applications in High Hazard occupancies (H-1 to H-5). In response, many specifiers turned to fire-protective glass ceramic and fire-resistant glazing assemblies to meet fire and life safety requirements. 

Impact-resistant, fire-rated glazing products, such as FireLite Plus® or  Pilkington Pyrostop®, minimize injuries from broken glass. When paired with appropriately rated fire-rated frames, both help create a transparent defense against multiple threats to occupant safety. In this way, they also support approaches to life safety design that ease barriers to visually monitoring patient wellbeing and safety.

More than glass: other considerations for life safety design 

Along with impact- and fire-rated glass, behavioral health facilities can support life safety design while maximizing occupant wellness by incorporating integrated louvers in glazing systems throughout the built environment. They minimize harm risks for occupants, improve building hygiene and mitigate sound transfer between adjacent spaces. 

Taking the place of blinds and curtains, integrated louvers can include ligature-resistant, cordless operators. Leading systems also meet American Architectural Manufacturers’ Association (AAMA) 501.8 performance certification for resistance to human impacts of 2,000 foot-pounds. As such, they help protect patients and providers from physical harm. Further, the hermetically sealed louver system eliminates difficult or impossible to clean components to efficiently bolster patient room hygiene. These systems can also provide Sound Transmission Class ratings (STC) on par with concrete blocks to support acoustically isolated environments—whether they are included into interior or exterior openings. 

Meet project goals through collaboration 

There are many avenues to achieving life safety design requirements and best-practice recommendations for behavioral health facilities. There are also many products—from multiple manufacturers—that can help teams improve their buildings for occupant safety and wellbeing.  

In the past, building professionals would not only have to coordinate the compatibility between systems from different manufacturers to ensure functionality but also varying lead times to keep jobsites uncluttered for accessibility to different trades. The coordination this approach requires is far from being without risks.  

Unforeseen delays, mistimed manufacturing schedules or negligence in determining product compatibility can create additional hurdles for project designers and owners. Project teams can sideline these obstacles by collaborating with manufacturers that work together to provide multiple, compatible solutions for behavioral health facility design. 

For instance, Technical Glass Products (TGP), AD Systems and Unicel Architectural can combine systems to develop solutions for a project’s specific needs. This close relationship both supports the easy logistics coordination and streamlines ongoing maintenance and inspection processes. 

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Contact TGP today to learn more about how this collaborative approach benefits both design teams and end-users.