Medical records for building health management
Journal
Journal of Architectural Engineering
Journal Volume
13
Journal Issue
3
Pages
162-171
Date Issued
2007
Author(s)
Abstract
Medical records provide essential information for evaluating a patient's health. Without them, it would be difficult for doctors to make accurate diagnoses. Similar to diagnoses in medical science, building health management also requires building medical records for making accurate diagnoses. At later stages of a building's life cycle, when the budget is limited, organizations responsible for building repairs and maintenance are unable to digitalize building health diagnoses and keep complete medical records of buildings; as a result, maintenance crews usually cannot fully understand buildings' overall health conditions and their medical histories, which may result in erroneous diagnoses directly or public safety dangers indirectly. Using the problem-oriented medical record adopted for the medical diagnosis of human diseases, this paper designs a building medical record (BMR), which allows simple electronic archiving, and evaluates its practicability with a case study of school buildings. The purpose of a BMR is to enable maintenance engineers (building doctors), building managers, and contractors of school buildings to have low-cost access to required information for making complete evaluations and maintenance suggestions for buildings. ? 2007 ASCE.
Subjects
Building design; Health care facilities; Information management; Structural maintenance
Other Subjects
Digital libraries; Diseases; Electronic medical equipment; Health care; Information management; Building medical record (BMR); Health management; Medical records; Medical science; Medical computing
Type
journal article