Abstract
The goals of healthcare design based on the human rights to manage physically, psychologically, and emotionally healthy life. The healthcare designs, however, have been criticized not to reflect their primary users, patients' and families' needs, under the management strategy centered by the functional efficiency. The study focused on the patients' room design on the users' perspective. The design criteria for the patients' room in Japan, Germany, Australia, U.S. and Korea were examined and compared. The subjects of analysis are the floor plans of general hospital recently planned and built in Korea and Japan and the standard floor plan models proposed by prior studies in Korea and AusHFG in Australia. Results and conclusions are as follows: (1) the patients' room has developed as a place where the users manage their living during inpatient period and has become a private room. (2) The guidelines for patients' room size in Korea and Japan are not enough considering the users' diverse activities compare to those in U.S. and Australia. (3) The guidelines of Korea should be reconsidered for the users' comfortable lives. It must include the specific criteria of the enough space between beds, the storages, and other assistant tools and facilities. (4) The desirable types of patients' rooms by the numbers of users in Korea are proposed as a one-bed room type and a four-bed room type.