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This study aims to investigate the physical environmental problems of two Thai community hospitals’ outpatient departments (OPDs) during the COVID-19 outbreak and to provide design guidelines for respiratory disease prevention.

A three-step method was used. The first step involved walk-through observations at Mae Wang Hospital and Doi Saket Hospital to assess the physical environment. The second step consisted of interviews with 22 medical staff working in the two hospitals. Third, the observation and interview data were used to develop a preliminary design guideline, which was evaluated by two focus groups comprising the same interview participants.

The observational findings showed that the two hospitals had difficulties following the COVID-19 prevention protocol due to physical environmental problems. Four different themes emerged from the analysis of the medical staff interviews. The preliminary design guidelines that were evaluated through two focus group discussions resulted in design recommendations for four areas (the overall building, clinical, support and staff areas) in the Mae Wang and Doi Saket OPD buildings. Three topics of design recommendations were provided to reduce the spread of COVID-19: improving hospital management, space design and air quality.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide design guidelines for COVID-19 and respiratory disease prevention in Thai community hospital OPD buildings.

In the past decades, public hospitals in Thailand have developed gradually and been characterized by an incremental development of hospital facilities. First, this study aims to investigate the factors that have caused the incremental development and how such development has affected the hospital’s architectural layout. Second, the paper assesses the functional quality of nonclinical areas in the Maharaj Hospital to identify space management problems.

The first part of the study is based on a literature review of the Thai health-care landscape. The second part includes the functional quality assessment of nonclinical areas, walk-through observations and documentation. Obtained data were synthesized using building quality method and measurement criteria and analytical drawing techniques for design assessment.

The first part identified three factors: the lack of local general practitioners, the limited number of public hospitals and the implementation of Thailand’s universal coverage scheme. These factors have resulted in a dramatically high number of patients in public hospitals. The second part identified problems regarding poor accessibility, a low level of spatial flexibility and poor spatial orientation. These problems are related to a lack of appropriate strategic space planning and lack of integration of the Thai culture into hospital design processes.

An identification of space management problems is a prerequisite to the improvement of hospital facilities.

This paper presents the first study of space management problems concerning nonclinical areas in Asian hospitals.