Construction and healthcare may be two separate industries, but they have one big thing in common– the rules and regulations that govern them must be taken very seriously in order to protect the safety of everyone involved. Here at DESCCO Design and Construction, this is something that we have a deep understanding of, with over 40 years of experience in both healthcare and non-healthcare construction.
Working within the strict and at times complex regulations of medical and veterinary construction is one of the things we do best at DESCCO. Just as we guide our commercial clients through local guidelines and building codes for their projects like retail stores, we work with our healthcare clients to ensure that the offices, laboratories, surgical suites, and other centers we create for them are not only functional, but ready to be approved by the governing bodies they report to.
HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA stands for the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and its inclusion in federal law protects the privacy of individual patients and their healthcare information. HIPAA allows everyone who seeks out medical care to know that their personal details remain completely confidential between them and their doctors.
As contractors, the job of our team at DESCCO is to support medical professionals in their efforts to maintain patients’ privacy. This can include everything from adequate soundproofing in doctor’s offices to allow for confidential conversations to installing secure service areas for physical files and digital servers to prevent tampering.
ADA Compliance
The ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act, sets building regulations that ensure the accessibility of spaces such as medical buildings for everyone, regardless of their ability level. This is especially crucial in healthcare spaces where a huge range of different types of people will be coming through.
Everyone needs to be accommodated, and while this includes obvious accommodations like elevators or wheelchair lifts and braille signage, it can also cover other details, like floor plan and layout that could be restrictive to patients, employees, or visitors with disabilities. Working within ADA regulations helps DESCCO keep the buildings and spaces we work on accessible.
OSHA Compliance
OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is something that we deal with daily here at DESCCO Design and Construction. Set in place to ensure safe working conditions for people in a wide range of industries, it’s something that we comply with in our own offices and construction practices, and something that we work to support the compliance of for our healthcare clients.
OSHA regulations cover everything from emergency preparedness and fire safety to the management of harmful chemicals or pathogens in the workplace. For our team at DESCCO, this means laying out floor plans for maximum safety in emergency situations, installing secure and safe facilities for the storage and use of dangerous chemicals, and even simple details like adding adequate storage for personal protective equipment such as gloves and masks.
AAHA Compliance
On the veterinary side of things, we work just as hard to maintain compliance with the rules and regulations of the AAHA, or American Animal Hospital Association. These guidelines cover similar concepts to the regulations of human healthcare, such as privacy and personal protection, covering factors like biological risk management and emergency preparedness.
However, the added layer of animal patients in veterinary medicine means that compliance takes on a new layer of complexity, accounting for the housing of various kinds of animals, areas to quarantine contagious patients, proper care facilities for sedated or anesthetized pets, and much more. Building veterinary offices and hospitals that cover these requirements is, at its core, about protecting vulnerable animals and the people who love them, and that’s a cause that requires the full dedication of our team.
Complying with construction rules and regulations is definitely one of the most complicated parts of our jobs here at DESCCO, but also one of the most important, and you can always count on our team to work with you to ensure that your new medical or veterinary facility meets the standards it needs to meet to ensure that everyone who enters it is safe and protected. If you’re interested in learning more, please contact us today! We’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.