The Guidelines are updated on a four-year cycle by the 124-member, multidisciplinary Health Guidelines Revision Committee (HGRC). Individuals knowledgeable about health care practices and health facility design (doctors, nurses, facility managers, architects, and engineers) and those who apply the document in the field (state and federal authorities having jurisdiction, or AHJs) serve on the committee. (AHJs reviewing and approving plans and construction for health facilities are often architects or engineers.) Adopted as regulatory baseline in more than forty states, the 2006 changes in the guidelines will require adoption by regulators and legislators in individual states.

Highlights that you need to be aware of include:

• Private rooms for acute medical/surgical and postpartum patients in new hospital construction
• New sections on intermediate care units, observation units in emergency departments, and skilled nursing units in general hospitals
• Strengthened information on the Infection Control Risk Assessment process
• New chapters on urgent care facilities, gastrointestinal endoscopy facilities, psychiatric outpatient centers, renal dialysis centers, office surgical facilities, and small primary care hospitals
• New language on assisted living facilities, hospice facilities, and adult day health care facilities
• New appendix language on green architecture and surge capacity in emergency departments