The Accessible Virtual Community

This PDF document discusses the accessibility of hospitals and tips on design and factors to consider to make a facility accessible.

This website contains information about how medical equipment of all types needs to be designed for use not only by patients/consumers of medical services, but for the service provider who may have a disability as well. "The accessibility of medical instruments is a new field of concern and study. An important implication of the inability of people with disabilities to use medical devices due to inadvertent design directly contradicts the intent of the ADA. Furthermore, inaccessible design of medical equipment can be life threatening. The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to provide a historical resource about literature available in this topic to support interested parties."

This article thoroughly describes some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with a universal patient room, which is a room designed to adapt to the patients needs. A “flexible” option for the future and ways to make the room most effective are discussed. This article focuses on the "universal" without specific mention of disability, but more with the usability, efficiency and the patient comfort and acuity factor.

The acoustical environment of most residential, commercial and industrial space is typically given little or no attention during project planning and design. Demand is growing for interior design that adopts universal design principles to living and working spaces as a preventative measure.