Interior Commercial Sliding Door Systems Support Lean Design at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics’ Heart and Vascular Center

A decade in the making, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics’ (UIHC) Heart and Vascular Center at the John Pappajohn Pavilion in Iowa City, Iowa, features an updated Heart and Vascular Center. To consolidate faculty and staff offices to facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration, preserving critical square footage was essential, as was making efficient use of space within patient-provider care areas.

To best utilize the layout of exam and procedure rooms, architecture and interiors firm INVISION utilized space-saving products and concepts: the on-stage/off-stage model for patient/provider areas and interior commercial sliding door systems.

The on-stage/off-stage clinic design model, known for its ability to provide shorter waiting times for patients and more collaboration opportunities for staff, shifts corridor environments from shared to separate between patients and providers. Because the on-stage/off-stage door model creates shorter distances for care providers traveling to and from exam rooms, it helps maximize the amount of time a caregiver can spend with a patient. It also helps reduce wait times and shift patients away from communal waiting areas. To optimize this configuration and maximize usable room, INVISION incorporated AD Systems’ ExamSlide™ commercial sliding doors in multiple on-stage/off-stage pods.

When the swing path of a (swing) door is eliminated and the associated approach clearances are reduced to those of a slider, there is more usable real estate for other healthcare essentials. By removing the arc of space needed for swing doors to open, sliding doors can provide up to about 30 square feet more usable room. When employed in the dual-entry approach, this allows for fluid occupant movement and efficient wayfinding.

Given the doors’ space savings and purposeful design, INVISION also incorporated AD Systems’ ExamSlide™ commercial sliding doors in corridor and procedure rooms.

Designed specifically for medical facilities, ExamSlide sliding doors use high-quality, commercial grade hardware and a precision engineered framing system. The doors slide along a top-hung roller system for a smooth, space conscious operation free of floor tracks. With dozens of exam rooms located within a single corridor and the ongoing dynamic of healthcare needs, they make efficient use of the hospital’s footprint and ease congestion.

Knowing that the specified sliding door systems must do more than just slide to meet the demands of UIHC’s renovated clinical spaces, the doors feature custom elements to improve the occupant experience and optimize operational efficiencies. The clinics’ dual-entry exam room sliding doors were designed with bold, colorful edge details on the patient and physician entrances to support wayfinding. The sliding doors also feature a resilient aluminum perimeter frame that wraps around the wall opening specifically to protect drywall and resist impact, knowing clinic staff frequently travel through corridors and rooms wheeling heavy equipment and machinery.

To accommodate the need for acoustic privacy and ensure patient/provider confidentiality, the selected doors use gasketing and drop-down bottom seal features to effectively seal all four sides of the sliding door leaf. The result is a tight perimeter with excellent sound abatement properties. For example, ExamSlide doors provide NIC (noise isolation class) values up to 39. This meets or exceeds the Facility Guidelines Institute’s STC 35 target for speech in exam rooms.

A space-efficient and intentional door solution, AD Systems’ ExamSlide commercial sliding door systems meet the UIHC’s Heart and Vascular Center patient and staff needs by improving ease of access and everyday patient needs.