For most applications, such as around your home and in office spaces, the weight of a door is completely ignored. This should not be the case with hospital traffic doors.

Three major factors make weight an important consideration for hospital door design:

•The frequency of people travelling through the door

•The speed at which they are travelling, and

•The way that they open the door.

A hospital Emergency Department will have high frequency, high speed traffic, day and night. That means all doors need to open quickly, yet still be durable enough to take repeated impacts. 

There is however a more crucial factor: the way people navigate through hospital doors.  in fact it isn’t uncommon to hear thermal traffic doors referred to as 'crash doors' thanks to the punishment they are subjected to.

In a lot of cases, such as when nurses are wheeling beds, wheel chairs and trolleys through hospital doors, they travel backwards using their shoulder, heel or backside to push through the door. Even when travelling forward, opening a heavy door while also pushing, towing or carrying an item can be very difficult. This is something Equipment Manager, Troy, atHospitals identified as a major issue for the workplace. 

“The doors were far too heavy, and presented a concern in terms of ease of use, weight and functionality.”

Strain injury was becoming a major concern at hospitals with their old, heavy timber doors. This shows how what may seem a minor concern can become a massive roadblock to the effectiveness of the hospital.

Hospdoor’sproducts are expected to replace all timber hospital doors.