An objective evaluation of emergency plan types using space syntax and users’ responses

Abstract

Emergency departments are the doorstep of any hospital and designed in different plan types due to a multiplicity of factors. As treatment follows a specific medical pattern according to established SOPs, therefore the spatial configuration needs to respond to that pattern. this paper objectively analyzed the three basic plan types of the emergency department for its spatial configuration using space syntax and users' responses. The results of this study demonstrate that the three basic plan types of emergency departments follow a consistence configurational pattern in their syntactic values despite different layout patterns. All three types exhibit not only a very similar space link ratios, integration, and difference factor (DF) but also the internal integration of the order clinical spaces in a consistence way. The results were cross-validated through users' responses for the required spatial pattern through closed-ended structured questionaries. The results of this study may provide a baseline for the objective evaluation of the emergency department in the future.