BIM and refurbishment of exisiting healthcare facilities

Towards the end of the 20th century, a growing concern to save nature and natural resources promoted sustainability, which evolved as a major area for global concern. Moreover, an increasing awareness about sustainability in the healthcare sector and construction industry demands more tools for the development, execution, and assessment of projects from environment point of view. To support and assess sustainability, various researchers, governmental and non-governmental organisations developed several tools. Also, it is expected that buildings will have a longer life (especially if constructed from 1980s onwards) because of improved building regulations, modern technologies, advanced tools, and new standards. Project goals, budgets, and clients' willingness towards developing a green facility determines the design team approach towards refurbishment, adoption of tools, and sustainability. Moreover, not all healthcare projects involve new construction; some are partly refurbished and/or extension to existing buildings, so the tools are considered in the context of existing facilities in this paper. Issues and drivers for refurbishment of existing healthcare facilities are discussed from a sustainability point of view. The need for existing healthcare facilities to remain operational during refurbishment projects presents a specific challenge during (re)development. A discussion of some of the widely accepted tools used to develop(sustainable) designs such as building information modelling (BIM) is also presented. The methodology includes a questionnaire survey, interviews, and site visits to hospitals. This work is output of analysis of the primary data collected to accomplish objectives of a threeyear research project related to existing healthcare facilities, and reduction of their energy consumption and carbon emissions.