Though it’s not directly related to patient care, a hospital’s parking facility should have a thoughtful design. Otherwise, visitors and staff members alike could experience hospital parking problems upon arrival. Learn about these common problems with hospital parking to avoid them.
Insufficient Parking Space Numbers
A large number of people may need to spend time inside your hospital on a given day, and most individuals drive cars to get there. Sometimes, people may have trouble entering the hospital because there are simply not enough parking spaces available. As a result, they must circle around until they find an open spot. Naturally, you don’t want this to happen, as it can frustrate visitors, make matters difficult for patients who are trying to set appointments, and block staff from arriving on time.
Adding more parking spaces can be a solution in this case.
You may do this by developing more land around your hospital grounds or implementing mechanical parking systems that stack vehicles to double the number of spots in certain areas. You could also make your parking area more suited to other modes of transport. For instance, you could include a bus stop and set up more bicycle racks.
Imbalanced Staff and Visitor Parking
Since hospital workers and medical professionals consistently need parking, they may take up spaces that would better serve patients and visitors. Without any form of organization in your parking lot or garage, workers may use some of the spots closest to the building. This common problem with hospital parking then forces people who need care or who have come to see friends and family search more for parking farther away.
One way to solve hospital parking issues is to assign set staff parking spaces toward the back of your parking areas to mitigate this problem. Moreover, you could create daily fees for staff parking to encourage them to commute by other means as well.
Inconveniently Expansive Parking
While it may seem like a good idea to expand your parking area to accommodate more people, this isn’t always the best hospital parking solution. For a parking lot or garage that is already quite small, having more spaces further beyond the initial area can be good. However, if your parking lot or garage is already long and wide, you may make things inconvenient for staff and visitors by expanding. This is because they’ll need to walk long distances from their parking spots just to reach the hospital building.
Mechanical parking systems provide an answer to hospital parking problems by stacking vehicles vertically on their moveable platforms. They can help a hospital fit more cars closer to the main facilities rather than forcing people to park far away. As an added bonus, mechanical parking systems may be much less labor-intensive to install when compared to building wholly new paved parking spaces.