The New University Hospital in Aarhus (DNU) is Denmark’s first super-hospital and one of the largest and most complex buildings in recent times. With an ambitious building owner the systematic integration of the occupational health and safety has high priority, from planning process to finished building. In order to get results it is crucial that the considerations for the occupational health and safety are integrated already in the early stages of the planning. ALECTIA is project manager for the occupational health and safety activities at DNU.

Efficient health and safety planning
Efficient health and safety planning is about minimizing working loads and the risk of accidents in order to secure a good physical and psychical working environment for the future employees. The working environment will be paramount on the finished super-hospital, and therefore the considerations for health and safety are systematically included in the design and planning stage. DNU will be a hospital where the safety and health of the employees are highly prioritized, and where the physical framework supports presence, well-being and development.   

As the health and safety responsible on the consultancy side, Kurt Egmose from ALECTIA will coordinate and promote the occupational health and safety activities in the design and planning stage, secure a multidisciplinary framework of the occupational health and safety policy and secure that the latest occupational health and safety knowledge is used.  

User involvement in the design stage
As an important part of the design process more than 500 user groups are involved to ensure the existing clinical knowledge and get input to the assumed health and safety challenges the next 10-15 years. The objective is to make sure that the occupational health and safety problems, found at the hospitals today, are not transferred to the new frames.

The user groups carry out full scale tests of a large part of the hospital rooms. In the project’s Design Laboratory the room is built as a flexible modular system where the intended functions are tested in practice.

For the use of the project architects and engineers and the subsequent operational management, each room is documented in a database describing the relevant occupational health and safety rules and sector guidelines, the most important room-specific health and safety risks and how these can be prevented in the project. The work of reference will be continuously updated.

Security coordination
The construction of the new super-hospital will take place in the safest possible environment. The objective is to make the building site a safe and attractive workplace for all the parties involved. At DNU the current occupational health and safety rules are considered to be the minimum requirements, and in several respects the standard is higher. With effective security coordination and several supplementary requirements for the contractors, DNU, as the building owner, works according to the fact that a good working environment and an effective prevention culture will increase the building quality and secure that it will be finished on time.

ALECTIA advises on, controls and coordinates all activities in the area. Kurt Egmose, who is the occupational health and safety manager, says: “Ambitious health and safety objectives have been set for the building, and these can only be obtained if a number of special initiatives are taken, such as compulsory safety introduction, supplementary education, joint contingency plan, own safety rules, systematic and common accident registration and accident prevention and an effective supervision of all contractors. Moreover, a well-designed building site with good logistics, where each activity takes place in a well-defined area, is a necessary foundation of the safety work. With about 150 different contractors it is necessary to define from the start how to design the building site. At the same time it will be financially advantageous to secure that the contractors have a well-organized framework.