Just like any other industry, hospitals also experience high and low seasons. Depending on the location and other factors, some facilities may have low occupancy or admission rates in certain parts of the year. Most people don't really like being confined in hospitals. They just go when the need for healthcare and medical assistance is urgent. But the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that hospitals could be overwhelmed by the surge of people needing emergency medical services for a long time.If you're thinking of using the option of mobile healthcare installations, you might want to consider deployable field hospitals to support the operations of your main hospital buildings. Here are some of the valuable contributions and functions that mobile field hospitals can perform within the healthcare continuum.

Typical Functions

Mobile field hospitals are temporary structures that can be moved from one place to another. Most of them can even be assembled and disassembled as may be needed. They're often deployed in remote areas where there are no medical facilities or in areas where there is a dire need for urgent medical attention. For example, treating those hurt in multiple car accidents when nearby hospitals are in full capacity.Here are some of the basic but valuable hospital functions that can also be performed in mobile field hospitals:

Triage area to sort out the patients based on their illnesses
Preparation rooms
Sterilization rooms
Intensive Care Units (ICUs)
CT scan and radiology areas
Laboratory rooms
Drug dispensaries and pharmacies
Staff offices and conference rooms
Portable toilets and bathrooms

Extension Spaces For Hospital Buildings

One of the most important ways by which mobile field hospitals can provide value to the healthcare continuum is to create extension spaces for existing hospital buildings. When there's a surge of patients in a given county or location, families tend to bring their sick loved ones to the nearest and most accessible hospitals. Sometimes they'd bring them to their preferred hospitals. Others might not have much choice. Most states don't have a centralized plan for building a specified number of hospitals based on the hospital bed capacity requirements of their respective states. Instead, the building of hospitals is left to the initiative of private healthcare institutions, medical professionals, doctors' associations, and enterprising individuals. However, problems arise when the existing hospitals can't accommodate the surge of patients, as was sometimes seen during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This is where the value of mobile field hospitals can be greatly felt. Mobile field hospitals can quickly address the lack of hospital space and hospital beds in places where the medical facilities are already overwhelmed with patients. Here are some of the specific ways which demonstrate the value of mobile field hospitals in terms of creating extensions of space for hospitals:

Mobile field hospitals can provide additional hospital bed capacities for overwhelmed hospitals. They can even put up the exact number of hospital beds they need under their circumstances and reduce them as needed
Mobile field hospitals can even be installed and fitted with features and facilities that would be suitable to the requirements of the regular hospital. This would ensure that they would still be able to provide the same quality of healthcare and caregiving to the patients accommodated in the mobile field hospital beds

Space For Emergency Surgery And Procedures

Aside from providing accommodation quarters for patients, mobile filed hospitals can also provide value to the healthcare continuum as spaces for emergency surgery and procedures when operating rooms of main hospital buildings are fully booked. When the operating or surgery rooms are full, hospitals often have to delay procedures or even turn down other critical patients who also need urgent medical attention. Here are some of the valuable functions that mobile field hospitals may perform when the main buildings are overwhelmed:

Spaces for urgent but minor medical procedures when the surgery rooms are filled with critical patients
Spaces where they can provide critical care to patients who have severe symptoms of infectious or other life-threatening illnesses and conditions
Spaces where they can provide immediate critical support to patients in life situations when the surgery rooms are filled with patients in similar critical conditions

Respite Spaces For Frontline Healthcare Workers

Mobile field hospitals can also be used for purposes other than as spaces for active hospital operations. Instead, they can be utilized as respite spaces for frontline healthcare workers. Hospital administration needs to ensure the health and well-being of their own frontline hospital staff and healthcare workers. They are, after all, critical to the continued operation of the hospital at a level that would be responsive to the critical needs of all their patients.When hospitals are overwhelmed, patients who can't be accommodated and have nowhere to go wouldn't be the only problem. A corollary problem would be that the frontline healthcare workers themselves would most likely also be overwhelmed by the patient surge. Some of them might become not just physically exhausted but can also experience emotional and mental fatigue. Mobile field hospitals can play a valuable role in such situations. They can be installed and fitted to provide respite spaces where the frontline healthcare workers who aren't on duty can rest. They can be fitted out with rooms for:

Sleeping spaces of hospital staff who work long shifts or render overnight duties for consecutive nights and days
Spaces where they can relax, get some rest, and gather their focus
Quiet nooks where they can ring their friends or family
Rooms where they don't have to hurry to eat their meals in between their shifts or during their lunch breaks
Spaces where they can huddle up to give emotional support to their teammates or coworkers

ConclusionHospitals are often underutilized when there aren't any urgent medical emergencies. But when an urgent public health threat such as a pandemic happens, hospitals can be overwhelmed by the surge of patients. When this happens, mobile field hospitals can provide much-needed valuable support as extension spaces for critical patients, urgent surgery, or medical procedures. They can also be respite places for frontline healthcare workers.