Decision making framework for green hospital building development

Abstract

Phrases such as "going green" and "eco-friendly hospital" conjure images of futuristic building. Apparently, the main green criteria that have developed are hardly visible, yet very impactful. Dealing with many criteria for planning and design associated with green buildings can be daunting. Many research on green building only concentrate on commercial and high rise buildings, but paucity attention is given to hospital building. Significantly, the decision-making process should be an important features in identifying the best criteria for green hospital building development. Thus, this research aims to provide a decision-making framework for green building development of the public hospital. The investigation has been made to the planning and designing stages of Malaysia hospital development. Subsequently, the analysis of green and sustainable elements for the criteria of hospital building development were carried out to propose the decision-making framework of planning and design for green and sustainable hospital building development. The study begun with a critical analysis of the concept and guideline of a green hospital building and later examines the existing green rating systems specifically designed for the hospital building. The data then were analysed using content analysis. A pilot study has taken place based on an implemented literature search. This study utilised a questionnaire survey method for confirming the green elements and criteria. The results from questionnaire was analysed using factor analysis which resulted in 3 sets of components (environmental, social, and economic). 154 respondents of this study were public hospital designers who have experience in dealing with public hospital buildings. Identification of the elements and criteria affecting planning and designing towards hospital green building development has been conducted. The later part of this research provides the decision support framework for green building development of a public hospital. The analysis resulted in 10 main criteria with 337 score points and 16 sets of Green Hospital Building Development (GHBD) matrix rubrics. These results have established several potential aspects that could impact the implementation of green building development for a public hospital. The Technique for Order of Preferences by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was applied to validate the results from the expert’s view. Findings from the research work are including ranking schemes produced for 3 main sustainable dimensions ordered as environmental, social, and economic. The important contribution from this study is to rank the sustainable dimensions in terms of how attractive the decision-maker(s) when all criteria are simultaneously considered in fair evaluation. In conclusion, this study had established a Decision-Making Framework for GHBD.