The healthcare design industry is on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak, responding to myriad needs tied to the built environment to ensure patients can be tested and treated effectively.

Healthcare Design turned to its esteemed Editorial Advisory Board members and other leaders for an inside look at how they’re responding to the crisis. In this ongoing web series, we’ll share what we hear, as we hear it—the challenges you’re all up against and the solutions being put into place.

In these “Notes from the Field,” you’ll find an industry diving in to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly disseminating ideas to help others manage similar scenarios.

Bill Repichowskyj, partner, E4H Environments for Health Architecture (Williston, Vt.)

Last week, E4H Architecture hosted a virtual design session to program and plan a series of temporary structures that will be deployed outside of the emergency department at various sites for one of our clients in the Northeast. All hands were on deck, and we had participants from the health network’s facilities team, clinical engineering, supply chain, security, and IT departments as well as MEP engineers and construction managers.

Input from this assembled team of more than 20 individuals led quickly to a scalable concept diagram that will be deployed throughout their region.

Accommodations for infrastructure and providing for electrical service, lighting, temporary heat, hand washing, and data connections were designated and placed around patient treatment areas located with the assistance of the CDC guidelines for separation.

If you have insight you’d like to share in this format, email Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Kovacs Silvis at [email protected].