Department Of Veterans Affairs
VA Space Planning Criteria (Chapter 287)
Washington, D.C. 20402
November 2006
D. Digestive Diseases, as used in these criteria, includes several procedures done in the
Endoscopy Suite.
1. Room capacity per year should be based on:
Formula 1:
Operating days per year x Hours of operation per day
= Number of
Minutes per procedure / 60 minutes
annual procedures
a. The general planning model for VA facilities assumes 250 Operating Days per
Year and 8 Hours of Operation per Day. Room capacity will fluctuate as hours
of operation are modified, i.e., additional capacity may be generated by
extending the daily hours of operation within the same physical setting.
b. Room Efficiency Factor selected is 80%, except for ERCP, which assumes 3
procedures per room per day (75% Room Efficiency Factor).
c. Modalities with routine, scheduled procedures and backup equipment (more
than one piece of the same type of equipment in the department) should
achieve the higher efficiency factor.
Example: Assume a modality room that averages 30 minute per procedure /
suite stop:
250 operating days per year x 8 hours of operation per day
= 4,000 annual
30 minutes per procedure / 60 minutes
procedures
A maximum capacity of 4,000 procedures/suite stops per year, assuming
100% utilization. However, 100% utilization is not realistic to achieve, thus, it
is not an accurate design standard. Apply Room Efficiency Factor:
4,000 x 80% = 3,200 annual procedures.
TABLE 1: WORKLOAD PARAMETER CALCULATION
MINIMUM
AVERAGE
ANNUAL
WORKLOAD
LENGTH OF
PROCEDURES
TO
PROCEDURE
PER ROOM
UTILIZATION
GENERATE
PROCEDURE
(minutes)
(rounded)
RATE
ONE ROOM
Flexible
30
80%
3,200
960
Sigmoidoscopy
EGD
45
80%
2,130
640
Colonoscopy
90
80%
1,070
320
ERCP
120
75%
750
225
The number of annual procedures per room will be used as a criteria
parameter to calculate the number of procedure rooms in the Space Criteria
Digestive Diseases Endoscopy Suite (Chapter 287): Page 287-5 of 16
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