Nursing Home Design and COVID-19: Balancing Infection Control, Quality of Life, and Resilience

Abstract

Many nursing home design models can have a negative impact on older people and these flaws have been compounded by Coronavirus Disease 2019 and related infection control failures. This article proposes that there is now an urgent need to examine these architectural design models and provide alternative and holistic models that balance infection control and quality of life at multiple spatial scales in existing and proposed settings. Moreover, this article argues that there is a convergence on many fronts between these issues and that certain design models and approaches that improve quality of life, will also benefit infection control, support greater resilience, and in turn improve overall pandemic preparedness.

Keywords: Covid-19; Nursing home design; health care architecture; infection control; pandemic preparedness; quality of life; resilience.

Fig. 1

Nursing home design and the macro, meso, and micro spatial scales.

Fig. 2

Generic and hypothetical ground floor plan of a household model showing a unit with 11 single rooms with private bathrooms organized around a central communal area and access to a protected outdoor space.