Modern Trends in Healthcare Flooring

If you are a hospital executive thinking about renovating the hospital floor, you need to carefully think about how you are going to manage to install a functional floor. Government flooring contractors who are specialized in hospital and other health facility flooring options define a functional design as one where skill, convenience, economy and comforts are promoted. On the other hand, a non-functional option is a design where all the above activities are impeded and there is great deviation from high quality care that goes on to raise to costs to levels that can be considered intolerable.

The first thing that the hospital flooring contractor needs to address is hygiene especially when you are dealing with floors of any building that is related to the medical field; you know that a lot of bacteria loves to gather and dwell on floors. There is even a higher risk in a situation such as a hospitalized environment where a floor that cannot be cleaned well will easily become a harbinger for disease and go on to contaminate other patients.  Healthcare flooring contractors use certain specific materials that are easier to maintain and clean. The mostly prefer non porous materials such as travertine and limestone that cannot retain any microorganisms on their surface because alcohol based cleaning agents are more efficient on them.

The corridors and saloons of any hospital are among the most populated areas and as a result, the hospital flooring contractor is likely to choose tiles for renovation that are tough enough to withstand the high usage. The choice of tiles must also ensure non slippery properties so as to avoid any risk of injury as a result of slipping and falling among patients or medical staff. You can imagine that there are many substances that are used by doctors and nurses and, as such, the flooring must also be water resistant so as to avoid a situation where you have a bloating floor.

The hospital lobby’s flooring options should include some important marketing considerations and that is why hospital flooring contractor will prefer materials such as terrazzo, porcelain or ceramic tiles even though these options come with a higher price tag. In areas such as operating theatres you will almost always find seamless materials such as vinyl as the popular choice. Such products are normally available in very large sheets that come with welded seams as an important factor in the control of spreading infections; since they don’t have any joints between the wall and the floor, pathogens don’t have anywhere to hide. Hospital floor designs as well as other healthcare facilities have moved away from the predictable institutional look to the creation of a more user friendly design that has the patients, visitors and staff well taken care of from the planning to the end.